you a school teacher?”
“You’ll get nothing more out of me, Davida … Why do you think I was a teacher?”
“Because you’re bossy as well as polite. Yes, and teachers have to pretend to be better than normal folk so they’re bound to go a bit daft when they retire. What did you want with Sharon’s pockets that was worth ten quid?”
He looks obstinately away from her.
“Did you want to stick your hands in them like THIS?” she giggles, putting her hands in her pockets. “Did you want to fumble about in them like THIS?”
“No more dirty talk!” orders a very tall thin youth emerging from the bushes, “How dare you molest this young lady with your obscene and suggestive insinuations?”
“ME molest HER? Ha!” cries the man and lies back flat on the grass with hands clasped behind head. He thinks it wise to look as relaxed and unchallenging as possible for he is now greatly outnumbered. Beside the tall youth is a smaller, stouter youth who looks far more menacing because his face is expressionless, his head completely bald, and beside him stands Sharon saying scornfully, “Big pockets with buttoned flaps!”
“You should have left us alone a bit longer,” grumbles Davida. “He was starting to enjoy himself.”
“He was starting to enjoy his antisocial fetishistic propensities with a lassie young enough to be his grand-daughter!” cries the tall youth fiercely.
“Molesting two lassies in fifteen minutes!” says Sharon. “We’ve witnesses to prove it. He’s got to pay us for that.”
The man says, “I’ve paid you already.”
“That … is not an attitude … I would advocate if you want to stay in one piece,” says the tall boy slowly taking from a big pocket in his trousers a knife with a long blade. The smaller, more dangerous-looking youth says, “Hullo, Mr McCorquodale.”
The man sits up to see him better and asks, “How’s the family, Shon?”
“Dad isnae out yet,” says the shorter boy, “but Sheila’s doing well in TV rentals. She went to Australia.”
“Yes Sheila was the smartest of you. I advised her to emigrate.”
“I KNEW he was a teacher,” says Davida smugly.
“You stupid fucking cretin!” the tall boy yells at the shorter one, “If you’d kept out the way we could have rolled him for all he’s got, buggered off and nothing would have happened! We don’t live round here, we’ve no police record, nobody could have found us! But now he knows you we’ll have to evade identification by cutting off his head and hands and burying them miles away!”
He saws the air wildly with the knife. The girls’ faces express disgust. The smaller youth says mildly, “Don’t do that to old Corky, he wasnae one of the worst.”
“Not one of the worst?” cries the ex-teacher jumping to his feet with surprising agility, “Did I not make my gym a living hell for you and your brothers? I also advise YOU,” he tells the taller youth, “to put that knife away. You obviously don’t know how to handle it.”
“And you do?” says the tall boy sarcastically.
“Yes, son, I do. I served five years in the army before I took to teaching. Your combat training is all from television and video games. I have learned armed AND unarmed combat from professional killers paid by the British government. Davida. Sharon. Shon. Persuade your friend to pocket that bread knife. Tell him he’s a fine big fellow but I’m stronger than I look and if he’s really interested in dirty fighting I can show him some tricks that’ll have the eyes popping out of his head. Tell him I gave Sharon nearly all the money I carry so if he needs more he’ll have to come home with me.”
And McCorquodale smiles rather
wistfully at the tall youth’s
combat trousers.
I PHONE OUR ADMINISTRATOR and say that in ten minutes I will bring her the overdue assessments. She says, “Thank you, Doctor Gowry. And will you also bring the introduction to the new handbook?”
“That will take a little longer, Karen, perhaps another hour.”
“Then don’t bother bringing me all these things today. Leave the assessed portfolios and introduction in my front-office pigeon hole when you go home tonight. I’ll process them first thing tomorrow.”
“Thank you Karen, that would be much more convenient.”
“I’m Phyllis, Doctor Gowry. Karen left three months ago.”
“Haha, so she did. Sorry, Phyllis.”
I finish assessing the portfolios on my desk, look for the others and remember I took them home three days ago. Never mind. I’ll rise early tomorrow and bring them to the front office before Karen arrives. So now I tackle the introduction, though I fear this job is getting beyond me and I should apply for something less demanding. Which reminds me that I have applied for another job, with Human Resources, and must soon attend an interview for it. But first, the introduction. This should be easy. I need only bring the introduction to last year’s handbook up to date by changing a word here or there.
But revising the old introduction turns out to be almost impossible. I wrote it only a year ago but the language now strikes me as long-winded official jargon, misleading when not practically meaningless. It was written to attract folk with money into an organisation I now want to leave, but surely that can be done in a few simple, honest sentences? I try and try to write them and have almost glimpsed how to do it when I see the the time is nearly four P.M! My interview with Human Resources is at four fifteen! If I run to the main road and catch a taxi at once I can still be in time so run.
Rain is falling, every passing taxi is engaged, at ten past four I decide to phone Human Resources, apologise, blame the weather and if possible postpone the interview. I rush into a familiar pub and find the public telephone has been replaced by a flashing machine that gives the users an illusion of shooting people. I groan. A man I know asks why. I say, “No telephone.”
“Use my mobile,” he says, holding out what looks like a double nine domino.
“Thank you – thank you – but I don’t know how to use such a machine.”
“I’ll dial for you. What number?”
I cannot tell him, for the number is in a diary on my office desk. He offers to dial directory enquiries but, suddenly full of black certainty that I have now no chance of the Human Resources job, instead I order a large whisky for each of us.
He says, “Thanks. Cheers. You seem troubled. Tell me your woes.”
