Education part 3 - Infant School

I started infant school half way through the year I think.  Around Easter anyway.  I had to wear a uniform – grey trousers, black shoes, a white shirt and a red jumper.  I started in Mrs Ryle’s class.  Naturally, I was petrified and took a lot of convincing from my mum and my big sister (who’d been through all this with a far more devil may care attitude) that Mrs Ryle wasn’t going to kill me, hate me, ridicule me or ever get cross.  Even so, my mum walked me through the school halls to my classroom and stayed while I got settled on the carpet for this new thing called the register.  The register was when the teacher called out everybody’s names and you had to say ‘yes’ or ‘here’ and Mrs Ryle marked all these ticks in a beautiful straight line.  She put a circle if you weren’t there.  All through the register I kept looking up to see my mum standing by the classroom door.  And then I looked up and she wasn’t there anymore and I knew I was going to have to go it alone.

           

Mrs Ryle turned out to be a gem.  She was used to nervous, unhappy kids and seemed to make a real effort to make everything as gentle and comfortable as she could.  She played the piano at every school assembly and made up songs.  One of the songs went like this:

Knives and forks and spoons,

It’s time to set the table.

A place for you,

A place for me,

And one for Aunty Mabel.

I asked around.  Nobody had an Aunty Mabel.  I was confused but I still sang along with all the passion and verve I could muster.

In Mrs Ryle’s class, I got my first reading book.  It was entitled Look.  On every page there was a picture and one word: Look.  On the last page, there was a picture of a dog and the words, Look.  A dog.  It was a dull book and I remember a feeling of dissatisfaction.  Not because I was up to reading any more than that, but just that it wasn’t much of a story.
 

When my dad told us bedtime stories, he read and did voices.  Or, he didn’t read at all and made up ingenious plots and characters on the spot.  I remember he read Snow White to us one night from a big book of fairy tales that my grandparents in Ireland had bought me, illustrated with creepy pictures.  One of the pictures in the Snow White story was of the witch offering Snow White a big red apple laced with poison.  My big sister and I had never seen an apple like it and expressed wonderment.
           

We were often in bed by the time my dad got home from work.  The next night, he got in from work and came straight up to our room for story time.  He had bought each of us a big, shiny red delicious.  I couldn’t get over how it looked.  But I also couldn’t get over how much it looked like the poison apple in the book.  It was with some trepidation that I took my first bite.  My sister said she didn’t like it and I took the opportunity to say the same.  I’m sure my dad wasn’t trying to poison me like Snow White but I couldn’t be certain.  And red delicious apples still have something of an acquired taste for me.  I remember my dad looking disappointed and I remember feeling sad about that.

           

I’d started to read in Mrs Ryle’s class and it was there I also started to write.  I still have my first exercise book.  It contains rows and rows of the same letters being copied out.  They were meant to be done in straight lines but looking back, they were done in lines as straight as a heart monitor.  I’m not sure what happened there.  But by the end of the book I had come good.

           
I remember my family urging me to have a go at writing my name.  My dad taught engineering at NESCOT, a local college, and he regularly bought home paper for us to draw on with stuff printed on the other side.  Coloured paper was rare and special but mostly it was plain white.  I was kneeling at the coffee table at home, trying to write my name with a crayon on one such piece of paper and my family were sitting there encouraging me. 

           
A.

           
‘Yeeeeees’ they said. 

           
N, I wrote. 

           
‘Good boy’ they said.

           
D.

           
‘Excellent’ they said.

           
I may have paused for dramatic effect.

           
R, I wrote.

           
‘Very gooood’ they cooed.

           
E.

           
‘Good boy’ they said, a mild tremolo of excitement leaking into the collective voice.

           
I hesitated.  How did this one go?

           
M, I wrote.

           
The sound was the same that greets the loser falling at the finish line.

           
But by the end of my first exercise book, there were Andrews everywhere.  Mrs Ryle had taught me well.

Despite getting used to Mrs Ryle, fear continued to be a big part of my school life.  Miss Boyle was another teacher at the school.  She looked like the evil Zelda from Terrahawks (the scariest kids’ show in TV), was a big smoker and sounded like it.  I noted very early that she was a Miss, not a Mrs; she wasn’t married.  In my head, that meant it was impossible for anyone to love her.

           
I had a run in with her early on in my school career, in the dinner hall at lunch time.  We were being served cheese flan, a vile concoction that I wouldn’t dream of eating now as an adult.  And on this day, I was sat with it on my plate with no intention of eating it either.  But Miss Boyle was on lunch duty and she had no intention of allowing that to happen.  I screamed and cried as she sliced this wobbling crap into bitesize chunks for me.  I’ve no recollection of how the encounter ended, except to say she had a lasting impact on me.

           
Not being in her class, I could normally avoid Miss Boyle.  But on Tuesdays she was on playground duty.  That meant a necessary amount of interaction.  I did my best to behave but could feel her watching me all play time.  I came to dread Tuesdays, purely because of Miss Boyle’s iron fist in the playground.  I believe it was my mother who came up with the solution.  My dad had one or two handkerchiefs embroidered with G, his initial.  Sprinkle one of those with a dash of holy water (we had some in a plastic bottle the shape of mother Mary under the sink) and voila, a talisman for warding off evil teachers.  It worked.  Miss Boyle was still there but my fear wasn’t.

           
Then of course there was the Tuesday I forgot my blessed handkerchief.  I realised almost as soon as I entered the classroom in the morning – a cold shiver and a sinking feeling and a sense that it was too late to turn back.  I managed to stay strong and avoid trouble.  But I never forgot it again.

           

While in Mrs Ryle’s class, I had my first experience of going round to a friend’s house for dinner which wasn’t as terrifying as I thought it would be.  I went to Daniel Ascough’s house.  I wasn’t too nervous about it.  His big brother Liam was in the same class as my big sister who was in junior school and he was alright.  And their mum, Sue, worked at the new Asda and she was nice.  We watched the video to Michael Jackson’s Thriller and were so terrified that we had to hide behind the couch.

           

After Mrs Ryle’s class, I moved up to Mrs Thompson’s.  Here, I branched out in the friend department a bit.  I was friends with Wayne Lewis, Thomas James, Daniel Dawson, Ned Delaney, Rachel Kemp, Elizabeth Husband, Christopher Creighton, Joseph Hargreaves, Cyrus Fernando, Katy Packwood and of course Daniel Ascough.

           
It was in Mrs Thompson’s class that I was first encouraged to think about future careers.  She went round the room asking us all what we wanted to be when we grew up.  Katy Packwood said she wanted to be a doctor.  It came to me and having thought about it for a while, I said ‘a cowboy’.  Growing up in South London, there weren’t many opportunities for such work and my mum had laughed at me when I asked her to knit me a cowboy hat (I thought she could knit anything).  But I felt a connection with the Wild West.  In any case, it wasn’t the most outrageous suggestion.  Daniel Ascough said he wanted to be a shark.

Education part 2 - Nursery

St Elphege’s Nursery was run by a foul tempered bovine lady called Mrs Smith who was nothing but a figure of fear to generations of kids who passed through that nursery.  She had two daughters, one of which was called Emily and I remember sitting in a car with Emily once though I don’t remember why.  I think it was Ann Brannigan’s car (one of my mum’s friends) and I remember thinking that Emily was really nice and finding it strange that she could have been born of a woman with no obvious maternal instincts.  I also found it strange that the nursery could be run by a woman who never displayed any kindness towards children.

Mrs Smith’s reputation preceded her and even though she tried, my mother could never convince me that she was nice really.  I was dropped at the portacabin that constituted the nursery for my first morning there and did nothing but cry.  I remember looking up at the friendly face of one of the other nursery teachers, Mrs Clifton, and willing her to be a kind lady.  She was.  Eventually I stopped crying.

With Mrs Smith watching over us, all I wanted to do was keep my head down until I got out of there.  I don’t think I was an outstanding nursery student but I wasn’t a fool like some kids.  I got by.  Except one day.

It was PE day and PE meant we would all strip down to vests and pants and run around the school hall in a big circle until Mrs Smith bellowed ‘STOP’.  As I undid my trousers I had a terrible flashback to my bed and getting dressed that morning.  I put my own pants on every day, but for some reason I didn’t remember putting them on that day.  I looked.  I was naked.

My flush cheeks prickled with nervousness and humiliation as I told someone – probably not Mrs Smith.  Probably Mrs Clifton.  I remember it not being a big deal and being led over to a little cupboard where I was handed...a spare pair of pants.  They were white with a pale yellow hem and two pandas looked at bamboo on the crotch.  They were fluffy from being washed so many times.  The prospect seemed vile.  I was just hoping to sit out the PE session.  I could run around at home and shout at myself.  But no, I had to carry out the humiliating ritual in the pants of shame.  Everyone would have known what I had done.  Or worse: they might assume I had pissed myself.

Back at home, I found my pants on my bed.  I had just forgotten to put them on and cursed my own stupidity.  My mum washed the pants of shame and returned them to the nursery for some other idiot kid to wear some other time.  I vowed never to make that mistake again and I never did.

          

Shortly before I made the leap from nursery to school, we moved from our prefab outhouse to the main school building.  I think this was called reception class.  But it was still only for the first half of the day and we still didn’t have to wear uniforms.

I was a good kid.  I worried about everything and feared a stern word or look from my teachers.  But in reception class, I had one truly wild day.  Or half day.  Never having been sent to the corner in either my home life or my academic career so far, I was sent to the corner three times.

The first time was grossly unjust.  I grabbed a pen from the pen pot before the teacher (I don’t remember who, possibly a Mrs Wright) said we could.  I was held up as an example of disobedience, of the unruly type who would attempt to seize the best pen before anyone else could.  My only crime was that of wanting to draw the best picture I could.  Most of the felt tips were blunt, dry and furry.  It wasn’t possible to create a masterwork with such tools.  I had seen a new felt tip and gone for it and as a result, spent the first few minutes of drawing time sat in the corner facing the wall.  But somehow, despite my nervousness and impeccable record, I wasn’t bothered.  I returned to my table when all the decent pens had been taken and drew an unmemorable picture as bad as anyone else’s.

My second offence was more serious.  My best friend Daniel Ascough had developed a fascination with The Karate Kid, a fascination that would later lead us to karate classes.  Sat cross legged on the carpet during story time, he linked his hands together and told me to karate chop them, as if I was karate chopping wood.  Never having karate chopped anything before, I was thrilled when my chop broke his hands apart.  My elation was short lived however, when Mrs Wright ceased her story to tell the pair of us off.  We were taken to sit in the adjoining room on opposite sides from each other.  We were round the corner from our classmates and teacher and out of sight, so we sat making faces, trying not to laugh too loud.

We all had our jackets on ready to go home when I committed my final misdemeanour.  I was sitting beside Matthew McLoughlin, a chubby dumb kid who would at various times become my best friend.  I had never really been aware of him at school before.  And I had never paid attention to how rosy red and shiny his cheeks were.  I studied them.  Were they, were they plastic?

‘Please can I poke your cheek?’ I asked.

He nodded with the happy gormless grin of the mentally deficient.  I reached out and pressed my finger into his pudgy, grinning face.  That was when I heard Mrs Wright squeal my name for the final time.  She ordered me to the corner once again, the defence of having been granted permission to poke Matthew McLoughlin in the face apparently being no defence at all.  Now used to being persecuted, I recall rolling my eyes, or doing whatever the four year old’s equivalent of that is.  I had my jacket on and everything.  Some kids’ parents were even at the door, ready to pick them up.

I sat in the corner and waited for my mum to arrive.  I don’t know if Mrs Wright told my mum about my appalling record that day.  If she did, my mum must have been very cool because I don’t remember her acting on it.  And at least I found out that Matthew McLoughlin had a face made out of flesh, just like the rest of us.

Education part 1 - Playgroup

Playgroup was at St Michael’s Church Hall, Wallington.  I went there when I was three.  I remember walking there with my mum on autumn mornings and hearing a wood pigeon and asking if it was a cuckoo.  It was always autumn when I went to playgroup and there were always wood pigeons.

I didn’t like playing with the other boys at playgroup.  They were noisy and, led by Senna, the drycleaner’s son, tore around the hall, climbing on the climbing frame and shouting a lot.  I had two friends, Kirsty Boyle and Amber Johnsey.  Kirsty was bossy and later moved to Australia.  Amber was quiet and lived on Link Lane and sometimes my mum and I would go to her house.  She was Chinese.  She had a big sister called Jade who I would see from time to time.  I thought Jade was beautiful. 

I liked the dressing up box, though I don’t remember dressing up.  I realised that if you stood in front of the full length mirror and tilted it backwards, your reflection fell away from you.  I found that fascinating.  That was as fun as it got.

The least fun it got was at milk time.  We, the children, would be marched away in pairs and sat at a table and given a cup of milk to drink.  The cups were orange.  We were allowed to take one biscuit, usually a rich tea finger – the slimmest of all biscuits.  This was all fine.  I liked milk and I liked biscuits.  Even slim ones.

Then one day I was marched off to drink my milk with a certain boy.  I don’t remember his name but I suspect it was Gareth.  There were a lot of Gareths.  We were drinking our milk and had finished our biscuits when he reached out and took a second biscuit.  In my indignation I threw out an accusing finger to point him out to the playgroup woman (probably called Shirley; there were a lot of Shirleys) and knocked my milk out of my own hand.  It spilled all over the floor.  Never had I seen such a flood and on reflex, I cried like an orphan for the mess I had made.  It was now Gareth’s turn to point and he did so, a gormless look on his blameless face.

From that day on I would ask my mum, whenever she dropped me at playgroup, to talk to someone (Shirley, probably, or possibly a Marion) to make sure they knew that I wouldn’t be partaking in the milk that day.  Dutifully, she passed this message along every single time she dropped me off.  I remember watching her do it once and thinking I saw the hint of an eye roll from one of the Shirleys.  It bothered me, but not as much as the prospect of drinking milk.  Even so, when it came to milk time, I was filled with dread that someone would forget and march me over to the milk area.  It was a tense time.

In my reluctance to partake of the milk ritual, I noticed new distances opening up between myself and my contemporaries.  Not only did I not play with them, I also didn’t drink with them.  I was ignored.  I liked that.   Every time I saw my mum in the throng of mothers at picking up time, I was filled with delight.

*

It's all true.  Hope you appreciate the creative leap involved in inserting the above picture.

Blind Guy

A guy called Raymond started at my work. He was from South Africa and he was blind. He was tall, with black hair, grey at the temples. There was always a patch of his face that was unshaven but other than that he was always immaculately turned out, always smart, always sporting a shirt and tie.

I would watch Raymond at his desk with his headphones on so his computer could talk to him. I couldn't tell what he was doing; his computer screen looked different to mine. A few times a day he would make phone calls, always laughing, always managing to charm whoever was on the line, always getting what he wanted and saying thank you a million times for it.

When we spoke, I would stare hard at his deep-set eyes, wondering what it was about them that had failed him. They would dart all round the room like he was taking everything in. It made me wonder if he wasn't really blind at all and that it was just a ploy for sympathy and attention from the ladies.

He was a good-looking guy. The ladies loved him and he loved them. They doted on him and would say his name over and over again when talking to him, just in case he thought they were talking to someone else. There was always a lady or two on hand to help him walk anywhere.

"Jeez mite," he said in his thick South African accent, "usn't ut grite working wuth all these beautiful ladies?"

That convinced me he really was blind.

"You should see them," I thought, but I just said, "Yes."

Within a couple of weeks, Raymond had revolutionised the finance department. My boss, who seemed to think she was my friend, came in raving to me about how this was the most efficient the department had ever been. Even the college manager had praised her for the smooth running of financial procedures. All I knew was that my workload had become smaller and I was glad about that.

There were two urinals and I was standing at one of them, waiting for something to happen. I have trouble sometimes. Raymond came clattering through the door, white stick in hand.

"Hi Raymond," I said, just to let him know I was there.

"Hi Dan mate," he replied. Then he said some shit about the ladies.

I'm not one of those guys in toilets who sneaks a glance when you're at the urinal, sizing up the competition. But something made me look down at Raymond's. And since he was blind I figured it didn't matter. I think it was the distinct red tint of what was splashing against the clean white porcelain that made me do it. I stood watching, staring. Raymond appeared to be pissing blood.

I lost myself in that for a minute before I realised my own piss was squirting out at an angle and had gone all over my trousers.

"Shit."

"You alright?" asked Raymond.

"Yeah. Just pissed on myself."

"You wanna watch that," he smirked.

"Yeah."

He finished, washed up and clattered out of there.

I finished up and washed my hands. I splashed a load of water on my trousers where I had wet myself. I don't know what for. I guess I was going to make up some story about the taps coming on too fast and splashing me. It was better than saying I'd pissed myself. But no one noticed anyway.

Later that week, I was having lunch with Will from marketing and I told him I'd seen Raymond pissing blood. He chewed like a cow and looked at me. Then he put down his fork, opened his mouth and roared with laughter. I could see the rough pâté of his half-chewed food clumped behind his bottom teeth. When he composed himself he finished chewing and swallowed. Then he went back to his food.

"Well should I say something or not?" I asked.

He smirked at me.

"How do you tell someone you work with that they're pissing blood?" he asked rhetorically, patting his fork against his closed lips. "You don't," he said and went back to his food.

"But he's blind! I might be the only person who ever sees his piss!"

"Would you tell him if he wasn't blind?" Will pointed his fork at me.

"No. If he wasn't blind he'd be able to see his own piss."

This was news to Will and he mused on it for a second.

"Oh yeah. But you can't tell him." He returned to his food.

"Why not?"

"It's not a question of why not, it's a question of how would you."

That made sense to me. I had no idea how to tell him. And that was the problem. I decided to forget about it.

"Of course," said Will without looking up from his plate, "he could be dying and you're the only person who can save him."

He looked up and smiled.

I decided to ignore that and tucked into my own food.

As usual when I don't know how to handle something, I tried to forget about it and hoped it would sort itself out. I never stood next to Raymond at the urinals again, but I would often go in there and see them spattered with brown red residue.

A couple of months went by and Raymond came to the end of his contract. A collection went round along with a big leaving card that everybody was signing. My boss brought it to me and hovered while I thought of something to write.

And then it struck me. I had a plan.

"Do you mind leaving it with me?" I asked her. "I have trouble thinking of things to write in these cards."

I smiled up at her.

"That's fine," she said and started to walk away. "Just leave it on my desk when you're done."

To Raymond, I wrote, Been great working with you. Thanks for everything you've done. All the best for the future, Dan.

In a different colour pen, in discrete block capitals that looked nothing like my real handwriting, my shaking hand wrote: RAYMOND, YOU ARE PISSING BLOOD. YOU NEED TO SEE A DOCTOR.

My face felt hot and my scalp itched. I looked around and with my hands still shaking, closed the card and slipped it into its envelope. I put five pounds into the collection envelope and felt generous. Then, making sure I walked like someone with a clear conscience, I went to my boss' office. She wasn't there. I put both envelopes on her desk and walked out, still doing my best to convey innocence.

At the end of the week we had Raymond's leaving do. It was one of those drab occasions where everyone piled into our office to drink tiny amounts of warm, tart white wine from plastic cups, and one of those occasions when I realise I'd rather be trapped at the bottom of an empty well at night than exchanging pleasantries with my colleagues.

My boss gave an awkward, uninspiring speech, thanking Raymond for everything he had done over the last few months and wishing him well with whatever he was moving on to. Then she handed a gift to him. It was wrapped and I wondered why.

"Heeeey! A bottle! Is it wine?" asked Raymond.

"Yes it's Merlot," said my boss. Around the room a couple of other people said Merlot too because they wanted to be the ones to answer him.

"Great. My favourite," he said and shone a smile round the room like a lighthouse.

He also got a new set of headphones and a couple of talking books. He seemed pleased. He was genuine and gracious and, for the first time, I was worried that he might really be ill and that my inaction might have hurt him.

"Aaaand," said my boss like a game show host, "we also got you this card that everybody signed. I'll read you some of the messages people have written, okay?"

"Yes, please, go ahead," said Raymond.

"Okay, there's one here that says, 'Dear Raymond, thanks for always being lovely and kind. You will be missed. Love Sheila in HR.'"

Sheila blushed and everyone went "Aww."

"Thanks Sheila," said Raymond. "I'll miss you too."

Everyone laughed.

"And there's one here that says, 'Raymond, you have been a shining light for us all. The very best of luck in everything that you do. Much love.' And that's from Linda in the press office."

"Thanks Linda," said Raymond.

He stood with his back to the wall, holding his white stick in front of him with both hands. He looked timid and smaller than usual, like he was dwarfed by all the people who were there for him. I don't know if I wanted my boss to find my secret message right there and then but the choice wasn't mine.

"And there's one here that says 'Raymond, you are pis…'"

Her lipstick smile, contorted into a lopsided smear.

"Right… well. Let's raise our glasses," her voice shook and squeaked suddenly, "to Raymond."

"To Raymond," everyone repeated like a congregation and drank from their plastic glasses.

Raymond gave a speech in which he thanked everyone for making him feel welcome. He gave special thanks to everyone in his department and named me. People looked at me when he did. He said the college was a great place to work and wished us all well for the future.

Throughout the speech my boss played with her hands, looked at her shoes and bit her lips. She smiled when she was required to and clapped when Raymond finished. As the murmur of many conversations started up again, my boss took Raymond by the arm, led him into her office and shut the door.

I said quiet goodbyes to the people around me and left. I hope my boss managed to pass on my message. She never mentioned it. I never saw Raymond again. I hope he wasn't really sick.

*

This story was published on The Guardian's website as a runner up entry in their 2009 Summer Short Story competition.  It's true.  Click this link if you want proof.  It's a while ago now so I should probably stop going on about it.