Burning Boy (Penguin Award Winning Classics), The (10 page)

Lex groans. He feels he's letting out his life and feels a hollow where it used to be. Nothing comes to fill it and he falls into the bracken as though knocked flat by a swinging door. There are worlds, he thinks, and I'm in one and not the other. Where Ros and Sandra live, and everyone else. He can step back. He knows he can, though it will mean leaning against a force. And there he'll lose his stillness, and zap about like one of those mad balls in a slot machine, with bells ringing, lights flashing, springs propelling him. He wants no motion. He wants a cold stone-stillness. He wants no comprehension of his own subtleties; but hard, he wants, cold, he wants, complete, a self that's co-extensive with what his senses find. He wants to be his own single point, always now.

Lex burrows in the bracken, breasts it, swims it. He hears goats running off but knows they'll come back. He finds a shelter high on the hill where does have scraped a hollow under a bank for their kidding and he squats there smelling them and feeling their warmth in the ground. He's aware, after a time he cannot measure, of something moving in the dark and holds out his hand until the arm aches; until, at last, he feels a touch on his fingertips. He sees a goat marked on the sky and sees the gleam of horns and yellow eyes.

The goat comes into the shelter and lies down. Soon another comes and settles on his other side. He puts his hands on their silky flanks and rests his back against the bank and stays with them far into the night.

There's no resting place in the school year. Norma knows that each day will brim over with work, misfortune, happy accident.

She writes a letter to a publisher asking her to be guest speaker at the prize-giving. A judge and an athlete (both women) have turned her down. If the publisher says no, she has only an actress to fall back on and actresses are likely to say not only unpredictable but outrageous things. She'd like to have the actress but will be relieved if the publisher accepts.

‘… with your vast experience, both here and overseas, in a profession acknowledged to be among the most fascinating …' Old ghosts and bags of wind, she thinks, gourds of the Judas tree – not knowing where the words are from any longer. They come back every year when she writes this letter; and trouble her sometimes as she stands on the stage and looks at the garden of faces … Norma gives a shiver. She puts the words aside. The publisher has a reputation for outspokenness, perhaps she'll be as outrageous as the actress. As long as she makes the girls laugh. Norma is tempted to write, ‘Please tell some jokes.' She walks about the school at times longing to hear jokes. One of the good things about Sandra Duff is that she makes her girls laugh. And fascinates them in some way. There are times when Norma goes into Sandra's room and hears the hiss and hum of a mental life. Other teachers simply get laughed at. Lex Clearwater, David Dobson, Helen Streeter, Phyllis Muir.

Norma buzzes for her secretary and gives her the letter to type. ‘Oh Jane, I think Miss Duff has a free period. If she's in the staffroom would you tell her I'd like to see her. No, on second thoughts I'll go myself.' She needs to get out into her school. It stretches, she can feel it, sprawled on the hill; limbs that are her own limbs, corridors her knowledge and her will, and love and pity – love and pity? Yes! – flow along. Single-voiced, nine-hundred-voiced … But she decides to stop that line of thought. Shakes herself, rubber-steps along. The only way to function is through
practicalities. She looks into the staffroom and sees Sandra reading a magazine at a window table. ‘The
Woman's Weekly
. That's not like you, Sandra.'

‘There's an article on Tom Round. What a wanker.'

‘Tom's very good at self promotion. Mind if I sit down?'

‘Help yourself.' Sandra pushes out a chair, tinkling her Indian bells. Norma is aware Sandra does not like her, so she makes herself bright and simple and direct.

‘I've had another letter from Mr Stanley.'

‘Yeah?' Sandra's face wears an anticipatory grin – a trifle cruel.

‘A poem called …' She looks although she knows, ‘ “Electric Love”. That's in a bulletin, isn't it?'

‘Used to be. I copied it out. I've been using it with third forms for years. What's he say?'

‘You'd better see.' She gives Sandra the letter. ‘I don't take it seriously, by the way.'

Sandra reads, grinning, snapping her teeth. ‘What a loony.'

‘A loony with six daughters going through the school one by one.'

‘ “It is very plain that the words ‘filament of being' refer to a certain organ of the body, and so to claim that love lights up that filament …” He's a bloody nutter.'

Norma wishes Sandra would not swear. ‘But he has a point, don't you think? Poetry's supposed to be suggestive.'

‘Yeah, I guess. Where'd he get a opy?'

‘Oh, he does his homework, our Mr Stanley.' She takes the letter. ‘I'll have to write to him. Is there anything you'd like me to say?'

‘Tell him to jump off a cliff.'

‘Something a bit more constructive than that.'

‘I'm not going to stop using that poem if that's what you think.'

‘I don't want you to, Sandra. As far as I can see it's a very good poem for girls of that age. It's intelligent and witty and – sentimental.' She blushes lightly at Sandra's contempt. ‘But it doesn't hurt to know how other people feel about it.'

‘Wanker Stanley doesn't get a vote.'

‘I'm afraid he does. This time though, he's in a minority. I'm only telling you, Sandra, so you'll know what's going on if you hear about it. He's sent copies of this letter to the board.'

‘Another bunch of Soapy Sams.'

Norma kept her temper. ‘They're fairly reasonable people. Well, I've taken enough of your time. I'll let you get back to your Tom Round.'

‘What you should do,' Sandra said, ‘is back me up. Write to him and tell him we're educating people here, not locking them in little rooms and trying to pretend there's nothing outside. These girls have got bodies, they're not made of bloody scented soap. There's hormones rushing round in there. They menstruate. And they've got ideas in their heads, I mean
ideas
. They're ready to get outside and live and we lock them up with a set of rules. Shit, what's the use of talking to people like you? You let bloody Stanley in your school. And you've got Muir clucking round measuring the length of skirts and snipping off leather bracelets. What's the use?' She threw herself back in her chair with a rattle of bells.

Norma stood up. ‘Well, I hope that makes you feel better.'

‘For Christ's sake, I mean it.'

‘I know you do. We've had this argument before. I agree with some of what you say. If it's any consolation I'll be telling Mr Stanley that he's wrong. But in my own words, if you don't mind.'

‘All palsy-walsy.'

‘He's no pal of mine. In fact he's a silly little man. But none of us are free from silliness.'

‘Meaning me?'

‘None of us.'

‘God, you've got a face for everything. Who are you, Mrs Sangster? I'm not too sure there's anyone at home.'

Norma blinked. ‘My word, you do go at things. Haven't you heard of moderation?'

‘I've heard of copping out if that's what you mean.'

I mean, Norma thought, a middle way, but could not say it. The language she must use was soft and wet, rather like a jellyfish, no bones. She knew the realities of her position – compromise was in there, certainly – but found no way of stating them. Nobody at home. It made her tremble. John Toft had said something similar. ‘You see this side and that, it is a condition. How can you have a job where decisions are made? You should be paralysed, Norma. Frozen like a statue, eh?' He made a pose. ‘Not able to throw the discus far away or put it down.'

It's true, but only half, Norma thought; and seemed, with that, to
illustrate their judgement. She shrugged it off, bristled at their cheek. ‘Well,' she said, standing up – and knowing that in spite of her uncertainty and anger she managed to look unconcerned – ‘I'm sorry we seem to be at cross purposes. I'd like you to be happy here, Sandra. But you have to fit in with us not us with you.'

‘Is that a threat? And what do you mean “us” anyway? You and Muir and the governors? I'm in this school because of the girls.'

‘Come and talk to me when you cool down. We can't go on like this I'm afraid.'

Norma left the staffroom. She heard a jingle of bells and hard little steps in the corridor, then a wheeze from the lavatory door. She wondered if Sandra had gone to have a cry. That would be a good thing. Something in her needed weeping out. Aggression and anger on that scale were a sickness; and one of her own questions would have to be what damage it might do to the girls. On the other hand there was life and bite in Sandra Duff …

Norma gave a short laugh. ‘You see this side and that.' John knew what he was talking about.

She went into Phyllis Muir's office.

‘Ah,' Phyllis said, ‘I was coming to see you. Lex Clearwater hasn't turned up.'

‘Have you rung him?'

‘There's no reply.'

‘I hope he isn't sick.'

‘Do you? Well … I've got his classes covered. But I'll need to know what's happening tomorrow.'

‘Keep on phoning.'

‘And if there's no reply? I can't afford the time to be traipsing up there.'

‘I'll go, Phyllis. Let me know at lunchtime. I need to have a talk with Lex.' But she counted Phyllis Muir a more serious problem and wanted her out of the school as badly as Phyllis wanted Lex. ‘You must behave as if you feel His hand upon your back,' Phyllis told the girls, ‘urging you along.' She went about the corridors with a forward lean and darting steps and elbows jutting sharply out behind. She changed direction like a huntaway. ‘You! Girl! You with the red hair. Is that a T-shirt under your blouse?' She terrified new girls, but as they went up the school they learned to see her as a joke. There was a case, Norma thought, for having a man as
deputy principal in a girls' school – and a woman in a boys'.

‘Anyone in the sickroom?'

‘One girl with cramps and one with a migraine. A lack of intestinal fortitude in both cases.'

‘Has Mrs Parr seen them?'

‘Of course. Cramps and migraine are part of her holy writ.'

Norma sighed. ‘Anything else?'

‘Hayley Birtles. I caught her with leather bangles on her wrist and she refused to let me cut them off.' Phyllis dived her hand into her pocket and brought out a pair of nail scissors, which she snipped several times in the air. ‘Said her father gave them to her, one for every home run she hits and he'd be “mad” if she took them off. I can't have girls defying me like that, in front of the others.'

‘What did you do?'

‘I've stood her down from the softball team for the rest of the year. I'd like you to back me up on that.'

Norma closed her eyes, steadied herself. ‘No,' she said.

‘What?'

‘No, I said. I won't back you up.'

‘Why not?'

‘It sounds to me as if you set a confrontation up. And then, it seems, you over-reacted.'

‘The girl defied me. In front of her friends.'

‘Knowing Hayley Birtles, you shouldn't have done it in front of her friends.'

‘I don't take kindly to that. I've been managing girls for thirty-five years.'

Norma would have liked to say, And doing it badly. She held the comment back. ‘I think this girl is on a knife-edge, Phyllis. Her sister's in trouble, as you know. So I'm not going to take away the only thing she's good at.'

‘You'll undermine my authority.'

‘Oh no. I'll get those leathers off, you leave it to me. But Phyllis, please, try not to be so rigid in these things. A little give and take …' and Norma could not prevent a smile – this side and that, no doubt about it. And yet it seemed that she could make decisions.

Back in her office, she sent for Hayley Birtles. The girl came in boldly, mutinous, but, for all her weight of thigh and arm, with a bounce and lightness Norma found appealing. Scuffed shoes,
fingernails inked in different colours, and skirt, surely, an inch or two shorter than regulation. The leathers on her arm had a martial appearance.

‘Sit down, Hayley.'

She plumped into the chair and met Norma's eye, no sliding away. Norma took a tissue from a packet in her drawer and walked round the desk. ‘Gum in here.' For a moment Hayley seemed to consider defiance – touch and go. Then she took her gum out and dropped it in the tissue. Norma put it in the waste-paper basket.

‘Well Hayley,' she sat in the other chair instead of going back behind her desk, ‘you had a bit of trouble with Mrs Muir.'

Hayley shrugged.

‘Tell me about it.' Get them talking, don't let them go dumb – Norma's rule.

Hayley made a jab with her shoulder as though warming up to pitch a ball. ‘It was just the way she shouted. “You there! You! Come here!”' She had Phyllis Muir's bark and head-jut exactly. The secretary opened the door and looked in.

‘It's all right, Jane. You think she was rude to you, Hayley?'

‘I'm not a dog, Mrs Sangster. I didn't come here to get shouted at.'

‘You know we do have rules though?'

‘Yeah, well, some of us can't work out what they're for.'

‘I sometimes can't work it out myself. But there they are, and changing them would be like trying to shift Mount Everest. The one about uniforms and ear-rings and so forth isn't going to change Hayley, not in your day and probably not in mine, though I'm working at it. If I say you can wear those leathers – and they don't seem harmful to me, in fact I like them – but if I say you can wear them I'll be in trouble. I'm principal, Hayley, but there are things I can do and things I can't.' I'm talking too much, get her to talk. ‘Does your father really give you those or did you make that up?'

‘I made it up. He knows I wear them though. He says tell you lot up here to mind your own business.'

‘Does he?'

‘He reckons people tell people what to do just to get a buzz.'

‘That's not exactly true.'

‘I reckon Mrs Muir gets a buzz.'

‘Well, I do agree she shouldn't shout.'

‘And these are for home runs anyway. But not from Dad. I put them on myself.'

‘They'll be up to your elbow before the season's over.'

‘Yeah.' Hayley grinned.

‘Are they really so hard to untie?'

‘I can do it. Takes a bit of time.'

‘Well, why don't we reach a compromise?'

‘What?'

‘I give a bit, you give a bit. Nobody wins and nobody loses.'

‘Sure. OK.' She sounded uncertain.

‘I won't cheat you, Hayley. But how about this. We'll treat those leather bangles as a softball thing –'

‘Am I still in the team?'

‘Yes, of course. You can wear them when you play but you'll have to take them off in school time.'

Hayley frowned. ‘Wear them in school matches? Midweek matches?'

‘Yes, that's all right. But it's not a start for other decorations. You're not a ninny, you know how a little thing can lead to something bigger, and so on. In fact you and your mates are expert at it.' Hayley grinned. ‘So, we play fair. You and I don't want to bang our heads.'