An Ill Fitting Jigsaw
It was the evening of the day, which as good a lyric as any. Although threatening black clouds part-covered the summer sun, it was indistinctly warm – warm enough to sit outside without a coat, although you wouldn’t sweat it if you were wearing one.
The scattered pub tables were those ubiquitous sort that are three or four planks nailed in a clump for surface and planking for seats, angled outwards from the centre some varnished, most not, all uncomfortable. Why? Because six diners would be forced sit opposite each other which made looking at smart phones all the more obvious in that rather sad way.
One such table was pushed into the corner and surrounded by trellises, giving it a shelter of sorts because climbing plants covered the sides and roof. If it rained, you’d get a delayed soaking, because the leaves would gather the water and drizzle them on your head like jus - but it was all rather pretty, if cramped.
Two plus sized women occupied one side of the bench, opposite them, an elderly lady who was both mother and grandmother, to the left of her a young man in his thirties, piddling about morosely with his phone, with a black scowl to match the clouds overhead.
There were other members of the party, too, but they couldn’t fit. So the young man’s wife, Judy, was perched on the end of one of the planks, dealing with two toddlers, and shoved into the furthest, darkest corner, was Jonathan. He had little or no room, so his shoulders were drawn in, pushing his neck upwards into his head.
Jonathan also had a phone
out. “Raducanu’s losing,” he announced loudly and his voice was smug, because
it was as he’d predicted, being a tennis fan and it was
Nobody answered. Nobody ever did.
There was no interest in a step-father’s opinions, nowadays. Hadn’t been since the death of a best friend, a decade earlier – which had bought about a brush with alcohol, depression and a final breakdown from which his reputation had never recovered.
In fact, Jonathon might be said to be happiest wearing a shroud of grey clouds. No underpants or socks, though.
He didn’t hold with them. Another result of ten years of grimness. Didn’t apply to working hours, but there you go.
Maybe Jonathan was irritated by the lack of response, because then he barked: “Hey, Tony. Did you know Ringo was dead?”
Still no response: nobody turned to look at his corner or put their phones down.
“Did you hear me? Ringo’s dead. You know, the man I bought our house off.” Jonathan bellowed and all the other diners in the pub looked up from their tables. Finally, he was noticed.
But not in a good way. Anthony slammed his phone down. “What kind of shit is that to talk about?” he snapped. “Did it occur to you that some people here might know him? For fuck’s sake” he added, under his breath.
Opposite, Judy glared at Anthony. “Well, what would you like to talk about?”
“All I’m saying is that a dead man is nothing to talk about at dinner is all.”
“Yeah? Well what would you like to talk about? The football? Let’s all talk about the football.”
“I don’t want to talk about fucking football.”
“Would you mind your language? The kids are at the table.”
“Well, he doesn’t mind his
language, does he? Ringo’s dead and half of
From an adjacent table, a cough. “Actually, we got scampi. We don’t hold with lamb dinner.”
This didn’t help. Anthony glared but bit his tongue.
“Scampi, eh?” offered Jonathan, combing his hand through his greying hair. “I was thinking of ordering the very same. May I examine the size of your portion? How many scampi pieces allotted per plate? One doesn’t want to be short changed.” And he tried to rise from the corner.
“Stay where you are,” ordered the younger plus-sized, his step-daughter. “Honestly, you are so embarrassing.”
“I’m sure this gentleman won’t mind if I count his scampi.”
However, the man looked as if he would mind and shook his head. “A shame your friend Ringo isn’t here to join you for a scampi dinner, though,” he added, as an afterthought.
“No. It isn’t because I didn’t actually like him. He was an uppity sort that played golf and bought his sticks to the pub to show off.” Jonathan bellowed.
“Will you shut up?” snapped the older plus-sized – his wife. “Nobody here wants to listen to you. You’re ruining dinner.”
“Grandad’s got no filters,” tittered one of the toddlers – as though it was a phrase he’d heard but hadn’t understand. The younger toddler began to cry.
“Oh, just great,” clucked Judy, “Now, you’ve got them crying.”
“Well, I don’t know why we’ve got to put up with that fart yelling halfway across the bar about scampi, dead people and golf sticks.”
Because the old lady was deaf, she hadn’t really grasped much of what was going on, but was pleased that the family were raising voices – she could actually hear snippets of talk, which she probably thought was most considerate. “I didn’t know you had a dead person who lived in your house,” she said, to her daughter.
“No, mum, we don’t have a dead person in our house,” returned Anne, looking exasperated at Jonathon. “We bought our house off a dead person.”
“Really? Did you have to go to the solicitors with him being dead?”
By this time, some mediocre lamb dinners had arrived, along with some more drinks and these were distributed amongst the family by young waitresses – students on vacation, probably. They often are. The lamb was sliced most thinly and drowned in a gravy disguise. The vegetables were quite decent, however – not two string beans criss-crossed on top of a boiled potato on this occasion.
Anne scowled. “Mum, he wasn’t dead when we bought it - he’s dead now.”
“Why, because you bought the house off him?”
“See what you started? You bloody idiot.”
Jonathon looked at his
congealing gravy somewhat depressed. “Shall we talk about the football? I
thought
But nobody answered.
“I wish I’d stayed in
“Yes. We wish you’d stayed
in
After they had eaten, Jonathan shuffled off to the bar to pay the bill, flexing his debit card. The bored young man barely looked up. He pinched a few buttons and offered him a slip of paper. “There you go, bro,” he announced, turning back to his phone.
Jonathan looked at it. One hundred and eleven pounds and a few pence. He rubbed his chin, enjoying the feel of the half a day of stubble. Surely, it couldn’t be right? Very cheap for all those lamb dinners – and there’d been desserts, coffee…yes, something wrong here.
He looked again. Tempted. A choice.
Finally, Jonathan coughed,
politely. “Excuse me, sir; I think you’ve made a mistake. You’ve undercharged
me. Do you want to check?”
Almost exactly one month earlier, Jonathan was in his office at work, squinting at his computer, willing the characters to come into focus.
They were dancing, some sort of upward, downward pole-vaulting style, late of the 1970s: before he had even needed glasses that, in turn, needed new lenses themselves. Crying out for them. Or maybe his eyes, those strained tears periodically smearing the insides of the glass.
Two pictures on his desk swan into and out of focus – Andy Murray shaking his hand and his Grandson with a stuffed alligator.
Jonathon sighed, swivelled
in his chair, pottered over to the kettle, his back aching from too much hunching
in bad postures. Taking some scissors, he snipped open a sachet of Alicafe, the
sort that tasted of
His mouth pursed, the upper lip kissing his hooky nose. It must be lesson changeover, judging from the girls’ voices blossoming from classroom doors. Across the way, in an identical office parallel to his, he could imagine his colleague Mohammed scowling at the ferocious timbre of the boys - farting loudly, bundling into each other and offering kicks, punches and shoves in the back.
Which was (he reminded himself) exactly why he had his office on the girls’ side. Seniority. Rank. Or first come, first serve.
The phone was ringing. He had it on silent, but the screen was illuminated. However, Jonathon took little notice, sipped coffee, framed in the office doorway, smiling and greeting girls as they filed past, some in uniform, others in hijabs, abayas; most of them grinning in a friendly way, calling out in excellent English.
He wondered how long he
could ignore it. The phone. Flipping it over onto its backside, he stood behind
his chair and peered at the handbook he’d been writing – a training manual for
those younger teachers in their first year who came to
A mentor and tutor to most of them, he was forever looking at ways their lives could be better organised – stemming as it did from a lack of desire on their part to do any work or thinking. Such was life.
Jonathan didn’t begrudge them, just mused at how an entire generation could be so removed from his experience. “You’re wrong for them,” Mohammed would often assert, “They need someone closer to their age, who understands their unique problems.”
“No, you’re not.” Paul, Head of Secondary, would reply. “They need a kick up the backside. Bloody zoomers.”
The phone was rattling the desk.
Somehow it had switched itself to vibrate. Could they do that? Were they now so self aware, they could switch themselves on and off at will? Jonathan thought so.
“Who is it?” Although he knew, because it said so on the screen. He bristled. Head of Year 10. Irish. Woman. Siobhan.
His hearing wasn’t so good either, so he scrunched his brain into listen and picked out a few words here and there, not helped by a high pitched, soupy Irish accent with its rising inflections. “…Khadra…Year 10 boys…at risk list…repeat the year…examination…access to paper…”
Something like that.
“I’ll come to you,” grunted Jonathon, giving up. He slipped his phone in his pocket. As he did so, it vibrated again against his right thigh. Paul. Of course. “I’m seeing her now.”
Muttering cuss-words all the way, some which slipped out, he strode across the generously open interior spaces, through the library and out into the boys’ side. He walked quickly for an old dude, still fit. By now, classes had resumed and it was quiet, save for a few senior stragglers. “Get to classes, naughty boys,” he called.
The pastoral team occupied one big space, five or six desks facing inwards and a sofa in the middle upon which were a tin of biscuits, a kettle and some of those cheap achievement medals you can buy in shops like Al Rawnaq, ‘Daiso’ or ‘Dollar Plus’. Jonathan didn’t go in, but called through the door.
Siobhan was on her phone using social media, but stopped after he called out. “What’s the problem?” She didn’t get out of her chair, planted, as she was, behind a similar desk to Jonathan’s.
“Something’s not right.”
Jonathan sighed, it had only been two or three years since she’d been on his teaching programme. How sharper than a serpent’s tooth – he might have thought. “Why is Paul calling me non-stop,” He replied. “I’ve got a ton of work, you know?”
She didn’t.
“Ok, what’s not right?” he added, hastily, seeing the sparks.
“This boy, Ali. He’s been disruptive all year. In Khadra’s class. I’ve seen him and others, hanging around her classroom. After school.”
“Nothing wrong there, though, surely?”
“We want him out or repeating the year.”
“Do we?”
“Yeah. He’s on our list. Cause for concern. He’s failed his English all year, but now suddenly he’s passed the exam.”
“Well, maybe he’s been working hard, putting some effort in.”
“What, Ali?”
“Well, I don’t know the boy,” Jonathan lied – because he did and had told him a few times to settle down and stop disrupting the learning. Part of his job. He was pretty good at that. A bit of humour, a quiet tone, low key. It usually worked.
“He got an A. Failed all his other subjects apart from Arabic, and Easy Islamic.”
“Do you want me to check his exams?”
“Yeah.”
Which is how Jonathan
found himself with a bit extra that morning. He strode back to his office,
cleaning his classes and muttered cuss-words – some of them audible.
So, not in any way suspecting that there was one door closing and another one opening – as they say – Jonathan made it back to the girls’ side, greeting colleagues as he made his way across: “Morning Jocasta, how are you today; Ghizlaine, you’re looking good,” and so forth, until he found himself outside Girls 7.
The door was shut.
Shut classroom doors was something of a no-no, even on the Girls’ side. But not for the reason you might think. Paul had made a rule, prior to the visit of an inspection team two or three years ago, that all classroom doors should always be open at all times. Safeguarding? No, not quite.
It was so management could walk around, glance in and check the students were – well – learning. It had been noticed (by him) that some teachers – but by no means all – had taken to handing out random worksheets whilst sitting back on their phones, checking social media and messaging each other. Which was certainly not what he called education, no sir.
“Turn to Page 46 and do the exercises,” he had told a staff meeting once, during a Monday afternoon CPD. Then had sat behind a desk on his phone for twenty minutes, laughing maniacally, not paying them much attention. “Did you enjoy that? No? Well neither do our students. And their parents pay a great deal of money for them to come here. Lesson learnt, I hope. Oh, and by the way, disgraceful behaviour at the staff barbecue last week. Some of you were piling your plates so high, you’d think it was the last supper.”
All these memories played themselves through Jonathan’s mind as he pushed the door open. Funny that. The way the brain can play hours of footage in less than a second, isn’t it?
Inevitably she was sitting behind her desk in a kicked back position on her phone, whilst a few students were dealing (presumably) with page 46.
“Khadra? Can I have a word?”
She looked up, sighed, but finished her message before sending it with a sort of tongue-flickering smile. “Yes, boss, what’s the problem?”
“Come here.” Jonathan requested, wondering how much pizza she’d piled on her plate at the last supper. Judging from her hips, not much.
Reluctantly, Khadra slunk over to the door and Jonathan was genuinely surprised she hadn’t asked or obstructed. He backed off slightly, because the young ones often didn’t understand distance or eye contact. “What’s up?”
Jonathan wanted to say something about the door, the text books, the phone, but wasn’t brave enough to do that one. Dipping back into his sporadic management training from over the decades and rejecting some gruntage about storming, norming and yawning, he invented a memory about sticking to the mission – yes, that was it, always be focussed on the meeting’s objectives. “Ah, I wondered if you have your term three exams?”
“Why?”
“I need to moderate them, give them a once over.”
“Again?”
That was true actually.
Jonathan was a pretty thorough and competent boss. Which was why he was still
in the job at his age. The older ones tended to be let go, on the whole – but
he’d hung in there, enjoying the multi-culture of
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Oh, nothing to worry about. There’s an anomaly Siobhan wants me to check.” He wondered briefly if Khadra had chucked them out. Or handed them back. They were supposed to scan and upload the papers to the intranet, but the young ones rarely did. However, to his surprise, Khadra flashed him a bright smile, sauntered over to her desk, produced a plastic wallet and tossed it over. “There you go.”
Mohammed was waiting in his office, sitting in one of the chairs, swivelling absently to and fro, on his phone.
As Jonathan entered, he put it down. “OK, mate?”
“All right, Mo. Yeah, usual stuff. I was going to get on with a handbook, but something came up…actually, you can help me, if you want.”
Well, it was nearly the end of term, and as luck would have it, Mohammed had nothing pressing on, although, work was never a popular option and he’d been planning to walk round to the tea shop and order karak chai. “OK. What is it?”
“Well, you wrote this exam, didn’t you?” And he popped open the wallet, extracted a few papers, passed them over.
Mohammed glanced at them. “Yeah.”
“I need to check the marking. In case…um…Khadra has been too generous.”
“OK. Hand a few over,” grunted Mohammed, pushing his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “Got a green pen?”
Jonathan had, and for the next twenty minutes or so, the two men flicked through pages, passing each other the odd comment, putting green marks all over the scripts, clearing throats, doing the mental arithmetic. All in a days work for a Head of Department.
Eventually, and almost in accord, both pushed the papers away with some satisfaction at a job well done.
“How many we check?”
“Maybe ten or so.”
“Well, look, Jonathan, there’s nothing wrong with her marking.”
“No. Pretty good job, to be fair. Maybe a tendency to be slightly generous at the bottom, slightly mean at the top.”
“Scared of giving out top grades.”
“Well, I’m too generous as a marker,” admitted Jonathan. “Always have been.”
Mohammed passed the papers back and Jonathan walleted them. “Thanks, mate.”
“No problem.”
Mohammed had forgotten
what he had initially come for, so he left on the long trek to the boys’ side,
certain it would come back to him at some point.
Somewhat pleased, Jonathan watched his retreating back, clutching the plastic wallet. He felt a sense of satisfaction for two reasons. Khadra had marked the scripts, had marked them fairly well – but also he hadn’t made a fuss about the worksheets and students. After all, it was two days before the end of term, he reminded himself.
Furthermore, he’d already moderated in the first place. He was off the hook.
He could pass the papers back, there’d be no atmosphere and Siobhan could stuff it in her pipe and smoke it. This was going to be a good day.
Or was it? The phone wouldn’t stop ringing, no matter how often it was ignored or switched to silent. When he wasn’t looking, it would turn itself back to noisy. Frustrating.
Jonathan place it oh his desk and watched it closely for thirty minutes, possibly more, with all the scrutiny and stillness of a twitcher or a natural history documentary film crew.
Of course nothing happened if he was looking.
He would run next door and grab a teacher. “Watch that while I go to the bathroom,” he would order, run across, do some business, return. There was never anything to report. But, as soon as he wasn’t looking, the wretched thing would switch itself on and take delight in making noise. At least he assumed this was the case.
It was a real Schrödinger’s cat.
After the moderation, he had walked back to Siobhan.
“Look, I know it’s not what you wanted to hear,” he’d reported. “Unfortunately, the marking’s good. Mo and me both checked it.”
Somehow, Jonathan could tell that Siobhan had done something. It was the grey eyes. They either looked blank or shifty. What was it? Had she made an assumption, drawn a conclusion, fitted facts together with doubts, hammered them, made an ill fitting jigsaw where all the pieces were in the wrong places, but had been forced to fit anyway, hammered there with a mallet?
She’d made some sort of report to Paul. Had to be.
“Why aren’t you picking up?” asked Paul
“That’s an outdated expression, Mr Paul. We used to ‘pick up’ when I was a lad, you know, those old phones, receivers…”
Paul leant over and took the phone. Lifted it, waved it, put it back. “There. I just picked it up. You could learn a lot from me, Jonathan.”
Head of Secondary, Paul Rudge, also just into his sixties, planted himself in the chair that Mohammed had vacated an hour earlier. “It won’t do, you know.”
“What?”
“Well, look, that boy – what’s his name - Ali. Pain in my ass all year. You know how many demerits he’s got? How many times that Siobhan’s had to go into Khadra’s class? To sort out the noise, hassle? She’s a bad teacher. Doesn’t control the class, mark books or plan lessons.”
“She’s not that bad, Mr Paul. You’ve given me worse.”
Which was true. There was that idiot, Sahand. Both shared that guilty memory, which flickered like film and rattled when it left the projector, wrapping itself nosily around the spool.
“And Ali. Look, I’m no Mathematician…”
“True.”
“…but how has he got an A? He can hardly read or write. Do you know him?”
“No,” Jonathan lied, again. “He’s not in my class.”
“Well, you must’ve heard about him? There must’ve been occasions when you had to sort out the lesson?”
“Well, the trouble is, all those boys are noisy. It’s what boys do. You go in there and it’s any one of half a dozen, Mr Paul.”
“Yeah, but this one’s a special case. He stands out, doesn’t he?”
“Well, I did hear he’s well connected. You know.”
“Did you, indeed?” Paul spoke with an emphasis that suggested Jonathan might have admitted something he shouldn’t.
Jonathan’s face creased. “Well, a lot of them are, Mr Paul, you know that.”
“I know that.”
“Do you want me to talk to the lad? Chat with his parents?”
Downstairs, in the meeting room, Jonathan sat with three figures. Apart from him (obviously), they were wearing thawbs and keffiyeh, and the elderly man, Ali’s father, fiddled with prayer beads as they spoke.
“Do you want a potato?” asked Mr Hussein, reaching in his pocket and producing a rather nice looking, uncooked specimen.
“Well, how thoughtful. It’s not been a good day without a potato. We call the spuds, you know.”
It seemed as though it had
been freshly dug and had that earthy smell of a
“It is rather lovely, isn’t it,” replied Mr Hussein, holding it up to the light, somewhat critically. “Ali grew this himself.”
“Well, well, well, Ali, hidden talents, eh? A potato producer. And not just from your ears.”
Ali giggled, but his father scowled. “What means this? What means this ears you say?” His accent had slipped it seemed – from received to something else.
“Where I come from, we often say ‘clean out your ears, they have potatoes’.”
Mr Hussein’s good humour seemed to all but have vanished. “Ali? He has not potato in his ears.”
“That’s true, that’s true. But did he cheat at his exams? Was he so busy growing potatoes that he had no time for revision and, alas, was forced into some sort of underhand activity?”
This caused more scowling and bead manipulation. “I have heard of your man, Percy Thrower. A great man. A man of honour and producer of potatoes better than even these,” he returned, pulling more potatoes forth, from pockets even deeper than Jonathan had previously thought. “You say that he is…underhand…like some cricketer that has forgotten the rudiments? Of bowling?”
“Or, indeed, the rootiments of bowling. I say, are those pockets somehow bigger on the inside?”
“How he cheat? You suppose he walk into school, after the examination, take his paper, substitute it with a different rewritten paper, somehow putting it at the bottom of the pile, all the while Ms Khadra marking and grading? That what you think? Maybe we get paper rewritted and make change?”
“No, that would be ludicrous.”
“This Percy Thrower. He is also spud chucker. I see Benny Hill. Now, for wasting my time, my wife time, Ali time, I throw all these splendid potatoes at you, you foolish, English nobody.” He raised the muddy specimens threateningly and Jonathan wondered how that white thawb could possibly be so clean and free of mud.
Jonathan ducked.
“No, I don’t want you to do that, I will,” replied Paul who snapped his fingers decisively and Jonathan removed himself from his reverie. “I want to see those papers.”
“But why? I don’t get it. What do you want?”
Mr Paul produced a list from his pocket; Jonathan recognised the scrawl. “I want these papers in my office to look at. We won’t do anything about this until after the summer break. Just make sure I have them. We don’t want anything – ah - going missing.”
Squinting at the list, Jonathan sighed. “Aw, Paul, you want all the examinations, from the last three terms? All these kids? That’ll take me forever.” Then he looked again and readjusted. “Oh, maybe not. They are all kids from Khadra’s class.”
“That’s right. All her students.” Paul stood up, apparently satisfied. “Mohammed wrote that exam, didn’t he?”
“Yes, he did.”
“So, the only people who could’ve seen it were you and Mohammed? Before the students wrote it?”
“Yes, that’s it.”
“I thought so, OK Jonathan, if you could get those papers to me.” He stood at the door, smiled briefly. “You know what? This country. Funny place in some ways. They bring us here, pay us well…then you get past fifty, piss off. Not all of us, Jonathan. But you know what? Once you leave, you can’t come back. No matter what you did, who you are.” And with that, he was off, heading towards the library, down the stairs towards his office, at a brisk and businesslike pace.
Jonathan knew. And he
shivered – but only a little.
The three of them stood by the library. A triumvirate, if you like.
Where they stood, you could, if you wished, scope the whole of the girls’ side. The classrooms curved at the edge in a graceful crescent of 30 rooms or so. Between them and the library was the open space.
Planted in the middle of classrooms, several glass-fronted offices, one of which was Jonathan’s.
He looked at it distastefully, for once feeling that he didn’t want it, didn’t own it, didn’t want to be in it, actually.
“Actually?” said Mohammed, repeating Jonathan’s thoughts.
He was standing next to his protégée, an Irish lad called Declan, recently promoted to pastoral head from next year. Jonathan had also enjoyed working with him – one of his trainees. He had managed the A level programme – which was a weight lifted. Also his father was, apparently, a fan of Wings and The Beatles; he imagined he would get on well with him, if they ever met. Which they wouldn’t.
Jonathan himself was slightly behind them, so he didn’t have to look the other two in the eyes.
“Do you think that Paul thinks Ali cheated somehow?” asked Declan, tautologically. He’d heard of another teacher – several actually – who had been accused of selling examination papers to parents. It couldn’t be proved, but there’d been knock-ons. Writing examinations was the sole province of a Head of Department, and hard copies only to Head of Academics.
Those accused had been quietly let go.
“Maybe,” replied Jonathan. He’d already broken one rule, by allowing Mohammed to write the second language paper. There never was quite enough time, you see?
“Tell Paul you wrote the paper,” said Mohammed, guessing correctly what was on Jonathan’s mind.
“Somehow he knows you wrote it.”
“Oh, it’s all crap,” replied Mohammed. “Crap. I looked at those papers. You know when something’s wrong. They’re too perfect. Those ones had spelling mistakes, bad grammar, soft errors. You kinda know when they stink. Those didn’t.”
“I still have to get them.”
Declan was frowning. “Those are writing papers?”
“A bit of comprehension. Some note taking. Multi choice, two pieces of writing…standard second language. Very easy, really.”
“I actually had to create the questions myself. We didn’t have the past papers to use,” added Mohammed, sucking his lips inwards, wondering if he should have made them more difficult. But, no. They were standard fare.
“I don’t get how anybody could have cheated. How is it physically possible? Are you telling me that somehow after the exam, they got their papers back and rewrote them before putting them back?” Andrew replied, somewhat perplexed.
Rubbing his chin, Jonathan muttered, “Siobhan was on about how there are always boys hanging around Khadra’s class after school.”
“I told her not to let them. I said that to her many times. It’s bound to be trouble, if you let that happen.”
“How? How is that bound to
be trouble? I don’t get it.” And Jonathan really didn’t see the problem. “The
girls are often at my office, asking for help or just checking to see if I
marked their papers yet…I can’t see an issue with that,
“It’s different for girls.”
“Is it?”
“Yeah. They don’t cheat.”
Jonathan grinned. “Aw, don’t let it worry you. It’s my problem, lads. Get about your business. What’s wrong? You need work to do? I can find some, if you want it.”
Reluctantly he walked across from the library to Khadra’s class.
Her students had disappeared by now. There weren’t many in school anyway. It was the last week, Eid had fallen the week before, families had flown to escape the desert heat of late June.
The door was still closed anyway. As he pushed it open there were now two young teachers, one behind the desk, and the other to the side. Khadra looked up from her phone, Sumera did not. Both were giggling about something to do with social media.
“Tik Tok?”
Khadra put her phone down. “Do you want to see? Sinead has posted videos of herself from last night.”
Jonathan certainly did not want to see. “She’s off sick today, isn’t she?”
“I should think. Not surprising, really. Both her and Faisal.” And she stressed the boy’s name as though Jonathan should understand the implication – which, of course, he did.
“Could I – ah – have that packet of scripts again?”
“Why? What’s the problem?”
“Oh, nothing to worry about,” Jonathan lied, yet again, noting he was becoming very good these days. “Also, I’ll need the Term 1 and 2 exams. Look – it’s these kids.” And he handed her the list.
She glanced at it. Maybe with a flicker of pain, but nothing much. “Really?”
“Yes, sorry. I know you’re busy…” He knew nothing of the kind.
“Well, Ok. If you give me five minutes I’ll look for them. Do you want me to bring them to your office?”
“Would you mind?”
Jonathan ambled the few doors down, planting himself uncomfortably into his fake leather swivel chair, thinking and growing. Jiggling the mouse, he typed the password – because the screensaver had kicked in. As they do.
The handbook he’d been squinting at swam back into view. He didn’t feel it now. Neither the cold coffee, the keyboard, the words he’d been playing with. He read the last sentence he’d typed, which seemed like weeks ago now: ‘To be a professional, you must maintain high standards, within the school – but also when you’re out and about’.
Absently he scrolled up
the typed pages with the mouse, glancing at choice words, nice phrases. Being
something of a good writer. ‘Pedagogy’. He remembered a time when he did not
know the meaning. A Landlord in
“What’s that?”
And the barman had sneered at him – all of twenty years old, just out of college. Hell, it had been different. Back then.
Jonathan was not alerted by a tap at his office door, because he always kept it open.
Khadra was standing there, looking neither nervous nor happy – somewhere in between. “Here you are.” She proffered the package, which, Jonathan quickly saw, had been sorted out in a helpful way. “Look. What’s this about?”
“It’s nothing. Don’t worry. Really.”
And he meant it.
A couple of hours later, Jonathan had descended the stairs from Secondary, to Primary and crossed the shiny, tiled floors of the foyer, kept so clean by the numerous, poorly paid Filipinas. He was clutching the plastic wallet.
The reception area, nearly always populated by parents, incumbent in the scattered sofas, set around small tables – waiting for appointments.
Jonathan smiled, waved, offered greetings and generally the parents responded in kind. Well, he’d been there a long time and was very well known. Mr Jonathan. Good teacher. You were lucky if he taught you. That was the general consensus.
But he kept walking. In front of him the offices of those that ran the school. He pushed swing doors that opened forward into a plush, well appointed space. Small plants, gaily coloured posters, the national flag.
A little shock ran down his spine and made the stomach flip. After all, you can die of a broken heart – he nearly had, ten years ago, when Dave confessed he had cancer. Jonathan was bouncing his first Grandchild on his knee. “How is it fair? You get him, and I get this?” He’d asked. 49 years old. It was no age.
Outside Paul’s office, of course, three people, all in thawbs and Mr Hussein, playing absently with prayer beads. They greeted him, warmly. “Ali, my boy, how are you?” asked Jonathan, smiling. “All good?”
“I got an A in my English,” replied Ali, proudly.
“I know, I know, I saw the paper. Well done, mate.” Jonathan would have ruffled his hair, but the keffiyeh prevented him, so he shook his hand. “Proud of you.”
Mr Hussein grinned warmly. “We have a problem with this Mr Paul,” he admitted, his smile slipping slightly.
And at that point, the door opened, Paul poking his nose out and invited the three in, all smiles, all effusiveness. Jonathan shrugged and dumped himself in one of the vacant seats. Nothing on, really, may as well wait. He resisted the urge to take his phone out; that’s what they all did and irritated him.
Especially those ones who studied the screen while walking in order to avoid saying good morning. Bastards, those ones.
If he was about to wonder how long he would have to wait, the answer would have been not long; I doubt he had time, though, because the door was suddenly rocked back upon its heels and the three who’d entered were already heading home. Mr Hussein was literally shaking with anger and Mr Paul’s nose, no longer effusive, was dripping sweat.
But not blood, that would’ve been unprecedented here.
Hussein looked at Jonathan, who had stood up, clutching the file. “Him fucker,” he screamed, “I know the minister. I know him.”
“Sorry, Mr Hussein.”
“Not your fault, Mr Jonathan. That fucker's fault.” And he steamed towards the exit.
As he did so, Jonathan caught Ali by the arm. “What happened, my friend?”
“He told my father I cheat.”
“Did you?”
“No, Mr Jonathan.” And without any further words, Ali followed his father, his mother bringing up the rear, scowling beneath her hijab.
Without waiting to be asked, Jonathan pushed open the door, entered Paul’s office, set the wallet on the desk. “There you are, Mr Paul,” he added, unnecessarily, watching as Paul took tissues to wipe beads from the corners of his eyes and clean the steam from his lenses. Jonathan sat down, not waiting to be asked. Pulled his right leg up upon his knee.
His shoe’s heels pointed towards the window.
“Give me a minute,” replied Paul, still shaking.
Jonathan did. It was well known that Paul was not good with parents. Usually the sort that capitulated, occasionally he could be confrontational with the results nearly always disastrous. As witnessed.
“I don’t buy it.” Jonathan stated, as something of an opening move. Pawn two spaces up from the king.
Paul had finally composed himself, with a swig from the water bottle he kept behind his desk. “What?”
“Ali cheated.”
“Don’t you start,” snapped Paul, his Australian drawl starting to show.
”But how could he do it? How?”
Ignoring him, Paul jabbed his finger at an imaginary chest in front of him. “Facts. He failed all year. Only you, Mohammed and Ms Khadra had access to the papers before and after the examination. Somebody helped him.”
“Well, the last isn’t a fact, is it?”
“Don’t get clever.”
“What if he worked to pass? What if it was too easy?”
“Crap. Ali?”
“I don’t believe it. I don’t believe Khadra or Mohammed would do it. I’ve been with them this morning – Mo helped me mark them for God’s sake.”
“Bollocks. I’m checking those papers, and believe me, there’ll be a sacking at the start of next term. One of those two is getting kicked.”
Jonathan sighed. “It was me.”
“What?” Paul would’ve spat his soup out, if he’d had any.
“Yes, sorry Paul. Mr Hussein paid me.”
“How much? How much did he pay?”
“Oh, I can’t remember. The going rate. It wasn’t easy to organise, maybe slightly more. I went into Khadra’s room, you see? After the examination. I told all the boys to create a commotion outside the room, paid them a few riyals to run in and out of the classroom shouting that ‘Timothy is in the bathroom smoking’, until she left her desk. We had to be quick. I had to rewrite that paper, making sure I put a few mistakes in it. Afterwards I got Ali to rewrite a new script, copying my work precisely.”
“I knew it.”
“That’s not all. Once we’d done the rewrite, we had to organise another distraction so we could slip the new script into the pile in a way she wouldn’t notice.”
“What did you do?”
“It was potatoes, you see? We had potatoes and I got Ali and his mates to toss them in, shouting ‘grenade’ – once she’d run out, the rest was easy.”
“You compromised the school.”
“Ah, well. At least you won’t have to read and mark thirty scripts, now. See, I’ve done you a favour.” Jonathan nearly managed a smile; his face pale with blotches of red.
“Don’t think that’ll save you.”
“I know. It was the
temptation, you see?”
Before he left, Jonathon did actually meet Paul once more. Totally by coincidence, but these things do happen in Airports. Ask anybody who flies (or used to fly) regularly.
So they sat down for coffee.
“Heading home, Paul?”
“
“
“Nice.”
“I doubt it. They think I’m autistic. It’s been good working here, you know. I’ll miss it.”
“Yes it has. Me too.”
“You? Not coming back?” Jonathan asked, curiously.
“He knows people. That Mr Hussein.”
“Ah, well, we both knew that.” Jonathan grinned, stood up, shook Paul’s hand. “Till the next time. You never know, do you?”
“You never do,” agreed Paul.
He watched as Jonathan
picked up a rucksack and shambled off towards some gateway or other. Then
called after him. “Potatoes? I mean who chucks potatoes, for God’s sake?” and then he replied, as if he knew the answer. "Nobody."
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