The Rye Man Read online

  The telephone rang as he had just finished clearing away the final remnants from his predecessor’s desk. It made him start a little, then smile. It was his secretary telling him his wife was on the line.

  ‘Well, how’s it going? You haven’t done anything stupid yet?’

  ‘No, just an Elvis Presley impersonation in assembly. It went down well. It’s nice of you to ring. What’re you doing now?’

  ‘I’ve just had a shower – it leaks – and after breakfast I’m going to get on with clearing those outhouses. What’re you doing?’

  ‘Exorcising the ghost of Reynolds.’ He dropped his voice to a whisper. ‘Listen to this Emma, when I opened the drawers of his desk they were full of girlie magazines!’

  ‘You’re joking, John.’

  He lingered over the shock in her voice for a few seconds, then couldn’t hold it any longer, and as she realised she had been wound up her laughter joined with his.

  ‘I must be still asleep to have fallen for that one!’

  They chatted for a few minutes about their respective plans for the day and then she wished him good luck and was gone. He wished there had been more time to talk.

  As he put the phone down he tried to hold on to the sound of her laughter. He had not heard a lot of it recently. Maybe the move to the country and a new house would be good for her, help her to heal more quickly. She seemed to be gradually shedding some of her strongest doubts, and getting the house into some sort of shape required most of her energy and thought. Perhaps too, if she was able to turn one of the outhouses into a studio she would be able to take up her work again and ease herself out of the depression her loss had brought. It was strange the way he always thought of it as her loss when he shared it too. Maybe he coped with it better, maybe though he didn’t always believe it, his loss hadn’t been as great as hers. He didn’t know.

  He started to unpack the items he had brought in a cardboard box, and to find a place for each of them. On his desk he placed the framed photograph of his last P7 class – he was standing with them at the top of the dry ski slope and after the photograph had been taken they had pushed him off, cheering his shaky journey to the bottom. On top of the filing cabinet he displayed the farewell card the children had made in Art and signed by every child in the school, then lifted out an unframed black and white photograph. It was his own primary class, taken in the school playground against the wall of the building, back row sentry straight, front row knees locked, arms folded. He called a silent roll of the names, only a couple eluding him, and paused over his own image. A buoyant, optimistic face with restless inquisitive eyes, wearing a stippled mask of freckles. Eyes which always wanted to know the secret of everything. Tall, even then.

  He held the photograph gently, carefully; the past was something that was important to him. He looked at his whitened plimsolls. After the heaviness of winter shoes it used to feel like his feet had grown wings, making him want to run for no purpose other than the pleasure of his own speed. He brought the picture closer. The soles looked wafer thin and he smiled at the thought of the cushioned, thick-soled trainers that children now wore to school, as much to ensure their street cred as to engage in any physical activity, tongues and latticed laces shooting halfway up their shins.

  There were more objects to be unpacked. The spoof front-page story with the headline, ‘Cameron KO’s Mike Tyson in First Round’, a couple of Emma’s small water-colours, one of his cricket trophies, and his ‘world’s greatest teacher’ mug. While he was in the process of arranging everything there was a knock on the door, but despite his invitation no one entered.

  It was a child – a girl with brown eyes, a ponytail decorated with brightly coloured butterfly bobs, and a hand that plucked at the hem of her shirt as she let her rehearsed message fly free like a small bird out of a cage.

  ‘Miss McCreavey says P5 have no jotters.’

  He cupped his head in his hands and opened his mouth and eyes wide in mock horror. ‘No jotters! My goodness, what are we going to do?’

  He brought her in and sat her down like the first visitor to a new house. She sat on her hands nervously, her eyes taking in as much of the room as she could do discreetly.

  ‘What’s your name?’

  ‘Kerry Clark.’

  ‘Kerry. And would you be related to the Bob Clark who has the shoe shop in Market Street?’

  She nodded her head.

  ‘I used to play cricket with your father. Do you think if I come down to his shop some Saturday he’d sell me a pair of those trainers you pump up like you do a bicycle tyre?’

  She nodded again and smiled for the first time.

  ‘Now, Kerry, I think we’d better see what we can do about those jotters. Can’t have P5 sitting with nothing to write on. Come down to the office and we’ll see if we can’t find some.’ He led her the short distance to the secretary’s office and held open the door for her to enter.

  ‘Mrs Patterson, we have a terrible problem. Kerry has just come to tell me that P5 have no jotters.’

  Mrs Patterson didn’t return his smile but bristled as if some slight had been inherent in his words. ‘Mr Cameron, I’ve checked the requisitions and Miss McCreavey didn’t order any jotters.’ She held out a copy for his inspection but he looked past it into her face with confusion as she continued. ‘It’s here in black and white. Exercise books, A4 paper, manilla paper, sugar paper, tracing paper, Pritt sticks. No jotters.’ She stepped back behind her desk with the air of someone who had just presented her argument to the jury, appealed to their sense of justice and now awaited the verdict with a deep conviction of the righteousness of her case.

  ‘I’m sure you’re right, Mrs Patterson, but can we not give P5 a set of jotters? Do we not have plenty in the stationery store?’ He stared deliberately past her, almost in slow motion, into the narrow little store.

  ‘We do have jotters but they’re ones the other class teachers have ordered and if I give them out some other class will end up going short.’

  ‘I’ll tell you what we’ll do then. You give Kerry a set of jotters and I’ll order some more. Would that solve our problem?’

  But she wasn’t easily appeased. ‘Stationery requisitions take a long time to come through. What if someone runs out before they arrive? I’ll end up getting the blame.’

  He was a patient man. He could keep it up much longer than she could sustain her resistance and he made sure his voice contained no trace of irritation. ‘If that happens they can use exercise books or A4 paper.’

  He stayed to watch her count out the jotters, her reluctance apparent in each movement, as if she was doling out her life savings. As he opened the door for the child to leave he called after her. ‘Tell P5 to make sure they use up every line. We don’t want any waste. Paper doesn’t grow on trees!’

  When he turned back to the office Mrs Patterson was busying herself in paperwork, seemingly oblivious to his presence, but when she spoke the edge had gone out of her voice and she seemed intent on explaining. ‘Mr Reynolds always insisted that each teacher be responsible for their own stationery. He was very strict about it.’

  He smiled and nodded as if to show he understood and that she was absolved from any personal blame. When she handed him a clutch of forms which needed his signature he signed them with only a perfunctory glance at their contents. He didn’t want to get off on the wrong foot with her. He was well aware that an efficient secretary could run a school single-handed and deflect much of the brain-curdling paperwork which flooded in every day. She, too, was now conciliatory in tone.

  ‘At break-time I always took Mr Reynolds a cup of tea and a biscuit. Would you like me to do that?’

  ‘That’s very kind of you, Joan, but I thought I’d probably take my break in the staffroom each morning. Maybe some mornings, though. Thanks very much.’

  She had been Reynolds’ secretary for ten years. It would take them a while to get to know each other. By reputation she was efficient, reliable and didn’t
appear to have had any problem adapting to the word processor, or any of the other technology which had recently arrived. She was in her late forties, dressed a little austerely, but he was confident he could win her over.

  ‘And how do you like working here Joan? Not many quiet moments, I suppose?’

  ‘Busy all day, Mr Cameron. It never stops. Apart from the admin and the phone, it’s like a shop. Children looking for plasters for scratched knees, dinner tickets, sorting out lost property. Never a dull moment.’

  ‘Sure isn’t it keeping you young looking. Maybe later on in the week we’ll have a chat about your job and any ideas you have about it. In the meantime I’d be grateful if you could keep on doing the excellent job you’ve been doing for the school, and if there’s anything you want me to look after, give me a shout.’

  She thanked him and started to edit a file on the processor. The green light of the screen filled with white lines of type. As he went out he could hear the soft click of her fingers on the keys.

  *

  Until break-time he dealt with a couple more phone calls – a student teacher asking if she could do her observation with them, a mother enquiring about music tuition – signed more forms, and finished the rest of his unpacking. He could still feel the presence of Reynolds in the room, but he knew it would fade as the days passed, and as he cleared the last assorted debris of his predecessor the bell rang for break.

  Within a few seconds everywhere was alive with the rush of feet and childish voices. His office was beside the staffroom and soon he could hear the sound of the arriving teachers’ voices, the water heater being switched on and cups being taken from cupboards. He had decided he wouldn’t join them on this first morning, not intrude on their desire to discuss him and their estimation of the prospects for the coming year, and instead he put on his jacket and went into the corridor. Eric was ushering the final stragglers into the playground.

  Outside the air felt clean and fresh after the dusty confines of the office. Strong bright sunlight gave everywhere a lingering feel of summer and the shouts and squeals of the children sliced through the air like the wings of birds. He set off on a leisurely circuit of the building, pausing now and again to simply look around him. The front of the school was largely unchanged since that day he had first entered as a pupil, but as over the years numbers had grown, the school had been extended in a piecemeal manner. Three additional classrooms had evolved from the original two-roomed building, followed more recently by the addition of an assembly hall, two further classrooms, office facilities and two mobile classrooms. While it was not perhaps the best planned school building he had seen, it wasn’t the worst and it had a solid homely character which he liked. It also had the benefit of an attractive open setting which city schools rarely had. At the rear, beyond the playgrounds, was a grass area which swept to a hawthorn hedge. Beyond that stretched open fields, hedgerows and on a clear day, the Mourne mountains.

  It was on this grass area that most of the children were playing, the patterns of their movements changing constantly like light on water. Bright little knots glistened then unwound outwards into flight, while others pulled tight in huddled, animated discussions. Some boys pushed each other in pretend roughness while others played football with a tennis ball. As he walked through them, children careered across his path. He almost collided with a boy wearing a Bart Simpson T-shirt proclaiming, ‘I didn’t do it, you didn’t see me do it, you can’t prove anything.’ A very small boy offered him a drink from his plastic water bottle and he patted him on the head in reply. Pairs of children sat on the grass playing their Nintendo Game Boys and a tiny circle of girls played some sort of card game. There was a familiarity about their play which reassured him as they flowed about him, some so engrossed in their play that they did not notice his presence, and he felt happy.

  He paused to listen to the lilting chant of a cluster of skipping girls, and the syncopated swish and slap of the rope on the playground:

  ‘On the hillside stands a lady

  Who she is I do not know

  All she wants is gold and silver

  All she wants is a nice young man.’

  The rope slapped louder and faster, turning with the cadence of laughter as the skippers eluded its twists.

  Gold and silver in their laughter – he didn’t want any of it to end but he knew it was almost time. The tennis ball landed at his feet and he kicked it back. The sunlight was warm on his face, he didn’t want to go back to Reynolds’ office. It was the same hawthorn hedge which had bound his childhood play, the squat, spiky barrier into which they had pushed each other and then returned to class with a red tracery of scratches and occasionally a black-headed thorn prick, which the teacher had worked out with a needle sterilised in boiling water, while they stared down the great corsetted valley of her bosom.

  There was a small girl sitting crouched at its base down at the farthest corner, almost part of it. Only the blonde colour of her hair made her perceptible. She squatted still and small and he looked for the other players of the game from whom she was hiding but could see none. Perhaps she had hidden too well. And then the bell rang and the flowing, divergent pattern of play coalesced and flooded back towards the school. When he looked back to the hedge, the girl had gone.

  The foyer depressed him. It wasn’t a big space but it was the area which created the first impression of the school. The navy paint on the walls darkened it, and from ground to child shoulder height, it was pitted with tiny white indentations where the plaster’s daily contact with schoolbags and lunch boxes had left it looking like a satellite picture of the moon’s surface. There was a long black stripe where something had been trailed along it and apart from a sign which instructed all visitors to report to the office, the only objects decorating the walls were an ancient framed school saving certificate and a dog-eared Green Cross Code poster. With a little imagination it could be turned into a focal point for the school, somewhere which presented a better impression of its life and work. Somewhere which signalled the type of environment he intended to create. He wanted everything to be different, to look different – everywhere to carry his signature. But he had little time to give it further thought.

  On the way back to his office he met some of the staff returning to their rooms and he smiled and nodded at them. Part of him envied the rest of their morning and he would have swopped with anyone who might have offered. His job still felt strange, like wearing a new suit you were not quite sure fitted properly, and had not really decided whether you liked it or not. He held a door open for a child carrying a tape recorder, encouraged another to tie his shoelace. Little wisps of grass could be seen on the tiled corridor where they had stuck in the grooves of trainers, then dropped out.

  It was time to meet the troops. It had been his intention to visit some of the classrooms briefly, show his face, start off that relationship of encouragement and support which he hoped would be one of his main characteristics. Now the moment had arrived, he felt a little nervous, unsure of where to start or how to carry it off. It was important his arrival did not carry any heavy overtones, or appear like some kind of early inspection.

  He studied the timetable on the notice-board to the side of his desk and looked at the names of his staff. He had already formed impressions of them from the Baker day and the discreet enquiries he had made. There were obvious pluses and minuses, and in some cases he hoped his first impressions had been wrong. A school staff was not like managing a football club. There were no free transfers or big name signings to bolster up a struggling team. You were stuck with what you inherited.

  He tried to be positive, optimistic about the people with whom he was about to work. Perhaps for the reason that he had already taken a liking to Fiona Craig, he decided to start with her infant class. The door, decorated with butterfly transfers, was partly open, but he knocked before he entered. She was engrossed with a group of children playing in water and did not notice his entry until her classroom assistant p
ointed him out. She dried her hands on her apron as she approached, and he was pleased to see that she was smiling. The whole room was awash with colour – reds, yellows, blues – with stencilled numbers, letters of the alphabet, clowns’ faces, posters of animals and cartoon characters. There seemed to be children everywhere, sitting and drawing at the scaled-down tables, playing in sand with buckets and spades, hammering pegs into blocks with wooden mallets, dressing up in costumes. Most were too busy to notice his entrance. A few looked up at him with curiosity.

  ‘Just called in Mrs Craig, to see how things were going. Everybody seems to be having a good time. I wouldn’t mind having a go myself at some of these things.’

  ‘Well,’ she laughed, ‘I think you’re probably a bit too tall for the Wendy house, but you could join in the Mad Hatter’s tea party if you like. Sarah, pour Mr Cameron a nice cup of tea.’

  With her tongue peeping out of the corner of her mouth the child carefully lifted the yellow plastic teapot and poured a cupful of blue water. He bent down and, lifting it up, pretended to sip it.

  ‘A very nice cup of tea, Sarah. Just what I really needed.’

  Other children offered him cups. A small boy came and handed him his hammer for inspection. Soon he began to feel like a distraction, an interloper into their play, and already he could see Mrs Craig’s gaze sweeping the room, anxious to see where her presence was needed. Two children had started to squabble over a spade in the corner of the sand area, so he complimented her on the attractiveness of the room and sought to excuse himself.

  ‘I’ll not get in your way any longer, Mrs Craig, it looks like world war three’s about to break out in the sand pit. Good luck to you.’