Visions (2 page)

2

The remainder of my teaching degree passed without event, thanks to my mum helping me with my typing while I recovered, and Simon’s leniency on deadlines. I recovered physically from the crash relatively quickly. My mum was against my buying a new car and after several rows, we stopped discussing it. The night before my first interview, she invited me over for dinner, probably to make sure that I was actually going to eat something in my stressful state. I accepted simply because I couldn’t keep checking my documentation or going through my lesson resources anymore. Instead, I took them with me and went through the lesson with her. The job was at Logford High School and my mum was dubious about me having applied for it in the first place. “You know it’s going to be much more difficult than the places you did your training at, even more challenging than Seven Tops,” she’d said, referring to the school she had taught Maths at for the last six years.

              “With the economy being the way it is at the moment, Mum, we’ve been told not to expect there to be as many jobs as there usually are when people qualify. I already know of three other people applying for this one job just off my course alone,” I’d replied defensively. In the end, she’d relented, seeing my side of the argument as being logical.

“On the positive side, the head of department, Corinne, is extremely good at her job. We’ve met at a few school county meetings. She’s very supportive,” Mum continued, “especially with her younger members of staff. Trust me; you’re going to need that support.”

However hard the job was going to be, I had to have an income to pay the rent. Plus working at this school would mean that I wouldn’t need to buy a car, which if I was being honest with myself, would suit me as well as my mum. The crash had left me suffering from nightmares on a regular basis.

              While she chopped carrots, I talked her through the lesson that I would have to teach to show what I could do. Every so often, she looked around to see a resource I’d created or to make a suggestion regarding an activity. “They’re really hot on self-assessment at the moment, so you could do with getting that in if you can,” she suggested. Once she’d started boiling the carrots, she joined me at the dining table and we tweaked the final activity together. “Do you want to eat at the table or would you prefer to watch Coronation Street?” she asked. I knew what she really meant was, ‘let’s watch Coronation Street while we eat,’ so I went for that option.

              We chatted while we ate, mainly about what the characters were up to. “Oh my goodness! I haven’t seen this in ages,” I commented. “What is Sally up to?”

              “I know! She’s terrible, isn’t she? And the worst of it is that Kevin really doesn’t have a clue…” The room faded. My mum was still speaking but it was as though she was in a different room. Suddenly, I was in a classroom. I wanted desperately to ask what I was doing there but I realised I wasn’t in control of my body. I was looking down at a desk that had an empty purple pencil pot on it. My hand was outstretched, picking up a pile of papers. Just then, a retching noise caught my attention and my head shot up. My eyes focussed on a small brunette girl, bent over the side of her desk vomiting onto the floor. Then it all started to fade and my mum’s voice became clear again. “…could do that, but then I suppose it’s all a bit exaggerated. Are you going to pick your fork up?” I looked over at her and she dropped her own fork on to the plate. “Gilly, you look terrible! Are you ok?” Within seconds, her plate was on the floor and she was taking mine off me. “Good Heavens, I hope it’s not my cooking, especially with you having an interview tomorrow. The chicken wasn’t pink inside, was it? I was so busy watching this silly programme that I didn’t think to notice.”

              “I’m fine, Mum.” I was as well. Apart from being shaken up and unnerved, physically I was fine now. “I just seemed to drift off for a moment.”

              “I’ll go get you a glass of water.” She scurried off. Was it me or had she looked even more concerned after I said that? “Are you sure you’re up to this interview tomorrow, Gilly-Bean?”

              “I’ll be fine, Mum. You should have paused your programme. It’s going off now.”

              “Doesn’t matter. I’ve got my real-life drama here with you!” At least she was laughing now.

              She insisted on driving me home even though it would have only taken me fifteen minutes on foot. Before going to bed, I went through all my interview preparations again, just to be on the safe side. Lying in bed, I ran through all the possible scenarios I could think of, including being asked difficult questions and being given a challenging class to teach. Just when I thought sleep would never come, it did.

              Once I’d signed in at Logford, I was taken by a sullen pupil, who had clearly been forced to play host rather than volunteered, to a small meeting room where three other people already sat. A young man rose to shake my hand and introduce himself as Mike, and the two remaining female candidates took his lead. We sat in awkward silence until another, clearly very nervous man was shown into the room. He shuffled from foot to foot after introducing himself and bit away at his nails. Mike started asking us all where we had travelled from but there wasn’t time for me to reply before we were interrupted by the headmaster, who led us to his modestly decorated office.

The headmaster introduced himself as Mr Briggs and warmly welcomed each of us and then gave us a bit of background about the school. I couldn’t help but be reminded of my mum’s concerns by some of his words. “I’m sure that you’ll have done your research on Logford before applying, so I’m not going to patronise you. We work in a difficult catchment area and many of our pupils have extremely difficult home lives, which can transfer into their behaviour at school. This is a challenging school and a challenging place to work, but that’s not to say it isn’t rewarding.”

I noticed one of the young women looking nervous now and guessed that she hadn’t really looked into where she was applying at all. The nervous man was still eating away at his nails; in fact, he’d probably reached his knuckles by now. Mike was maintaining what he probably considered to be enthusiastic eye-contact, but it seemed more creepy to me. The other woman sat taking notes on everything that Mr Briggs said, rarely looking up from her pad. “I assume that you have all come prepared to teach?” We all smiled and nodded. “You are each going to be taking the same class for twenty minutes. The head of department, Corinne, who you will meet later, has arranged it so that you are each teaching very similar skills to the class who will then be given a say in who is offered employment here at Logwood. We take our student voice very seriously, as you can see. I will arrange for tea and coffee to be brought into the office for you, while I escort our first candidate down and that will be you, Steve, please.” Steve managed to remove his hands from his mouth long enough to murmur something intelligible and together they left the room.

“He looked terrified,” Mike commented. “I’m surprised there wasn’t blood

dripping from his fingers with the way he was attacking them!”

“Poor thing. I hope he’s ok,” note-taking girl said. The conversation continued

in this manner until Steve returned, his face pale and his bitten hands shaking. As the headmaster informed me that it was my turn, I chose to force the image of Steve’s panic-stricken face from my mind and plastered on a smile. Walking into the classroom, the students sat chatting while I put my memory stick into the laptop and organised my resources.

“Right,” I began with a confidence I didn’t genuinely feel. “My name is Miss Gordon. Thank you for having me in your classroom today.” As I warmed up, I managed to make eye-contact with some of the students who weren’t fully paying attention, ensuring that they had no choice but to listen. Everything seemed to be going perfectly as I reached the end of the lesson. “Before I go, I just want to leave you with a list of the words that we covered today and their definitions. That way, you won’t be able to forget in a hurry!” As I looked down to gather the sheets of paper together ready for handing out, I caught sight of an empty, purple pencil pot.

I felt suddenly nauseous. Then there came a sound to match the turning of my stomach. I looked up in time to see a small girl with brown hair flailing over the edge of her desk while vomit poured from her mouth. I knew it was exactly what I’d seen whilst at my mum’s house, but that was not something I could make any sense of, so I rejected the link. There would be time to muse over it later. Instinctively, I moved towards the girl at the same time as the headmaster did, though he looked more nauseous than I did. I knelt down at her side, ignoring the smell and moved her hair away from her face. “Is there a first aider in school we could get to come and have a look at her?” I asked just as the bell rang. This seemed to jolt Mr Briggs out of his trance.

“Aaron, go and get Miss Laker. Quick as you can,” he barked. A small, skittish boy jumped into action as the rest of the room bar a couple of drama-thirsty girls vacated the area.

“Go on, girls,” I said, gently but firmly. “She’ll be fine but she needs space now, not people crowding her.” The girls looked irritated but left nevertheless. When Miss Laker arrived, Mr Briggs, walked me back to the small meeting room. He seemed to have regained some of his colour now.

“Well handled, Gillian. I’m not sure that it would have been if you hadn’t been

there. I admit to being a tad squeamish, though I’m guessing you already had that figured out!” As we entered the room, Mr Briggs looked around, called upon Mike to join him and they left. I helped myself to a cup of the water that was on the table and filled the others in on what had happened. When I finished, the girl who had taken notes throughout our introduction informed me that Mike had let slip while I’d been teaching that he was an internal applicant. He had done the second part of his training at Logford, which explained his confidence but had clearly done nothing to increase that of the other applicants. They deliberated over whether he would automatically get the job because he already knew the school procedures and would already be on his way to being established with the children. I listened, but it made no difference to me. I would do the best I could and wait to see what the outcome was.

              We were interviewed in the afternoon, one after the other, answering questions fired at us by both Mr Briggs, a school governor and Corinne Mooney, the head of department. I answered honestly, talking about my strengths of working with children who were underachieving in English and admitting that my chosen area for development was definitely behaviour management. Before the interview could end, Mr Briggs told the other two interviewers about what had happened in class. They seemed impressed.

“How is the girl?” I asked, genuinely concerned, but also knowing that it would look good to ask.

              “Amelia? We’re trying to contact her mother so she can go home. Unfortunately, her mother is somewhat elusive, but I’m sure once the girl’s at home, comfortable in her bed, she’ll be fine.”

              Back in the meeting room, we’d been asked if we wanted to wait to hear the decision about who had got the position or receive the news via phone call. All of us had chosen to stay and now the tension in the air was palpable. Steve had actually started to nibble on the sides of his fingers, clearly having caused too much pain to his fingertips. The only person who seemed comfortable was Mike, who had pulled a newspaper out of his bag and was now reading, occasionally smiling or tutting and shaking his head, depending on the story.

              Eventually, it was Corinne who came in to speak to us all. She sat down at the table and smiled. “Well, firstly myself and Mr Briggs would like to thank you all for attending interview. We struggled to make a decision, to be honest, as you all have your own valuable, individual strengths.”

This must be how the contestants on X-Factor feel,
I thought, with a racing heart and dry throat, as Corrine continued.

“Because of this, we have actually decided to appoint two teachers today and those are Mike and Gillian. Would the pair of you like to make your way to Mr Briggs’ office? The remaining applicants are welcome to stay for feedback from myself.”

              “Thank you so much,” I said, not wanting to say more for fear of making the moment worse for the others who had been unsuccessful.

              “Congratulations!” Mike said when we shut the door. He shook my hand and took a deep breath. “Wow! Our first teaching jobs!” I followed him to Mr Briggs’ office thinking how much more genuine he seemed now we weren’t in competition.

              The first thing I did after leaving the school was ring my mum who had been scared to leave the house in case she missed my call, her mobile not being the most reliable. She was jubilant and insisted that we set a date for celebration on Friday at my favourite restaurant.

              The evening was lovely. September seemed much less daunting now that I knew I had a job to go into. It was only when I feel asleep that I realised I now had another face to add to my nightmares. Now, I could see Amelia’s grey face in my dreams as well as that of the furious boy.

3

During the next few months there were lots of announcements on the Facebook group that had been created for student teachers at University, as most of the people who qualified at the same time as me managed to find employment. Not all were happy with their school but there wasn’t much choice. My summer was lovely, enhanced by the fact that I was genuinely excited about starting my new job at Logford. Of course, I was nervous, but my mum assured me that everyone was before starting their first real job. By the end of August, I rarely dreamed about Amelia, and the furious faced boy had disappeared from my dreams altogether. My mum was still keeping a close eye on me since the car crash and was unhappy about my decision to save up for a car but, as I explained to her, I felt like I’d drifted away from my friends because it was difficult for me to get anywhere now. If they were going to the cinema, I would need to catch two different buses, which I hated with a passion. I’d said no so many times over the summer that my university friends rarely bothered to invite me at all. I was hoping that Logford would offer a social life as well as an income. It was embarrassing when your own mother’s social life far outshone yours!

On the first morning, Mike acted like he’d never been away from the place. He already knew everyone and they knew him. I expected that he might make an effort to introduce me to other members of staff, but after a quick, ‘Hi, how ya doin?’ he went to catch up with the men from the PE department and I sat alone in the staff room,

nursing a cup of tea.

              I was starting to feel like a social leper as people rushed by without a word, when I saw a pair of court shoes appear in front of me. “Hi, you must be Gillian Gordon, the new English teacher, right? I’m Morgan Garrett. I teach English too and you’ll be my neighbour.” I looked at her blankly. “Your classroom is next to mine.”

              “Oh! Well, nice to meet you. You’ll have to bear with me. I’m feeling a little nervous.”

              “That’s ok. I remember how nerve-wracking that first day is.” Morgan was small, plump, and full of enthusiastic energy. Her smile reached her eyes, which were framed by thick purple framed glasses and her hair was flame-like, both in colour and the tendency to dance as she moved. “Are you having a form this year?”

              “Yes, I actually asked for one at the interview. They are giving me a year seven form, so they’ll be new, too.”

              “Sounds good. Mine are going into year eleven this year. I’ve had them since year seven. They all seem to have grown up so much over the last year. I can’t wait to see how they sprouted over the summer!” We continued to make small talk until Mr Briggs came in to give a staff briefing, and then I walked with Morgan to my classroom. It had been explained that the year sevens would come in an hour later than the other classes so that they wouldn’t feel as scared making their way to the form rooms with a mass of other people, so I was officially off-timetable today. It was something I was grateful for. As Morgan led me to my room, I noticed that her room, which had lots of lanky, tired-looking teenagers hanging around outside, was the same room that my observation had taken place in. As I caught sight of Amelia, the whole experience flooded back to me. We made eye contact and Amelia smiled weakly, as though begging me not to bring it up in front of the other students around. I was surprised at how bedraggled and withdrawn she looked. In my dreams she had

seemed so much taller and more confident.

              When Morgan left me to tend to her form, I stood in the middle of the classroom and looked around. Two of the walls had newly backed display boards on, ready for me to fill with work from my classes. The back wall had a huge whiteboard for me to write on and an interactive board that linked directly to the PC sitting on my new desk. The other wall was filled by a row of large windows. Looking out, I saw that the view they provided was of the courtyard, which was deserted now but I imagined would be full of excitable students at break and dinner time. I couldn’t believe that it was all mine. I even had a bookshelf to fill with textbooks and the collection of classics I’d built up over the years. I had a filing cabinet and a lockable cupboard for all my teaching resources. It was like a blank canvas that I couldn’t wait to start filling.

“Hello, Gillian,” chirped Corinne, as she walked into the room carrying a box full of rolled up posters. “Just thought I’d come and check how you are settling in! I’ve brought you these. I order new ones every year and thought I’d give you first choice. They have motivational slogans or educational definitions on them.”

              “Thanks, Corinne. That’s great!”

              “Let me know if there’s anything else you need, ok?” She left smiling and whistling, which I thought must be a good sign if she was that happy in work.

              My nerves dissipated when my new form started to come in, partially because I saw how great their discomfort was. There seemed to only be a couple who knew each other and they huddled together while the rest sat themselves down anywhere, looking around awkwardly. “Morning, 7G. My name is Miss Gordon and I’m going to be your form teacher this year. Does anyone know what that means?” They stared up at me, their eyes wide. “That means I’ll be the first member of staff that you see when you come in each day. You will come here first thing so I can register you and then we will spend twenty minutes together before you start your lessons for the day. If you have any questions or problems that you want to talk about, you can come to me and I will do my best to make things better for you.” They were starting to look more comfortable. “Right, so we can get to know each other better, let’s play a little game. I want each one of us to say full name
is
and then think of an activity we like that starts with the same first letter as our names. So for example, my name is Miss Gordon and I like giggling at bad jokes.” The students laughed in response and one boy put his hand up.

              “My name is Carl and I like cars, especially my big brother’s because it’s a Mini Cooper and they’re my favourites.” From Carl’s contribution, there was a show of waving hands as the others couldn’t wait to say theirs and soon I found I was learning their names. Smiles started to form on their faces as time went on. We managed to play lots of games, talk about what they needed to bring to school for their classes, give out timetables and other resources they needed before I took them to dinner where they could mix with the other year sevens.

              It was my second day when I came back into contact with Amelia. She was in the year 11 class that I now shared with Morgan. I would only have them once a week, while she had them for three classes. They were the bottom set and a very small group. From the class file I was given, I knew most had special educational needs, but I wasn’t given any information on Amelia. She sat alone and remained quiet throughout the lesson. When I checked what writing she had done, it was minimal and it looked like the writing of a very small child. Amelia seemed embarrassed. “I’m sorry,” she muttered.

              “Did you not understand the work?” I asked gently, kneeling beside the desk much as I had when she was sick. She looked at me, confused, and shook her head.

              “I meant, I’m sorry about ruining your lesson before summer when I was sick. I’m glad you got the job, though. When they asked for feedback, I wasn’t there but I would have said to pick you.”

I was touched. Amelia took her dark ringed eyes away from me and went back to staring at her desk. Stepping back, I took in how dishevelled she looked. Her arms were no thicker than my wrists. In comparison to the other girls in the class, she was practically waif-like.

              That evening, I thought about Amelia a lot. In fact, I was picturing the way she had looked at me when she apologised for ruining my lesson when the pattern on the wall I was staring at started to fade. When I came back, my cup of tea had gone cold and I’d brought with me a new image to add to my nightmares. Amelia was walking down an unknown street. The sky was dark and starless. She was walking past terraced houses, some of which had windows that had been boarded up with chipboard or were adorned by ragged curtains. The most worrying thing was the way that Amelia was dressed. She still had her school uniform on, which comprised of a short skirt and I suspected that, unlike the other girls, she didn’t roll it up to show off her legs. It was more likely that the skirt was several ages too young for her. Her blouse was thin and her arms pulled her tattered blazer tightly around her. On her feet she wore dirty, pink slippers. Where were her shoes? What in God’s name was she doing out in the dark wearing slippers and no coat? There was only one answer I could think of; she was running away. I looked down at my hands. They were shaking.

              By morning, I couldn’t be sure whether I’d slept or not. A variety of different scenarios had run around my mind all night. I wondered what would happen if I did phone the police.
Yes, I’d like to speak to somebody about a daydream I had. You see, in the daydream, a girl was running away, which means that it is either already happening or is about to.
I wondered what Dr Arnold would say if he saw me being dragged through the wards to the psychiatric block, fighting against a strait-jacket.