CHAPTER 43
My wife was fussing with my hair as I looked in the mirror, and I slapped her hand away gently as she tried to reset my ponytail. If this went on, I was going to have to get it cut off.

I finally turned around, and started playing with the lapels of her blouse to return the favour.

“Shoulder pads, love, you look like some Yank football player”

“That’s fashion. You never pay any attention to it, so there’s no point explaining it!”

“Yeah but….the shoes as well. All day on your feet, is that going to be fun? And I haven’t even mentioned the most important bit!”

“Which is?”

“Teenaged boys. Here we are, about to head out to work, and I don’t know if we will get there because just now I’m feeling the urge to throw you down on the stairs and ravish you, and you expect some spotty lad to be able to concentrate?”

She put on a little girl voice.

“Am I pretty, mister?”

I just growled and took her out to the car. Women….

We were now living, at the end of our teacher training, in a terraced house in Maryport similar to the one I used to share with Mam all those years ago. It was a council property, but there were still plenty of them spare as the economy only slowly started to improve back in the early eighties. The current government had come in on the slogan ‘Labour isn’t working’ and then proceeded to increase the unemployment queues to a terrible length. We had work, though, and were grateful for that, and despite the investments that had kept my windfalls comfortably filled, I was looking forward to what Dave said would be serious ‘wonga’ once the book was published.

That had been a hard journey, and I had been forced to take several long breaks from the project when the resulting nightmares began interfering with my studies, but in three months it would be out and I would once more have a little moment of fame. Tom had pulled back to my parents’ house, as I never thought of it, as the perceived threat from any left-over friends of the hellbitch had gone. It had been Tom who summed it up.

“Steve, when they were still being hunted they wanted to shut you up. They fucked that one up big style, and in my humble opinion any that are left are more concerned with hiding and survival than in getting you. Cunningham’s got no reach any more; without funds, she’s just another nutter in Broadmoor”

“What if you are wrong, Tom?”

“Sue me….”

We parked alongside all the other teachers’ cars, which was a weird thought, and made our way to the staffroom, which was even weirder. Our classroom experience had been in various Carlisle schools, so we were used to the general idea, but this was our place, the one we used to stay outside as kids. Sally, Bill Calvert and Harry Robson were already there, and Harry (Harry! No longer Mr Robson!) muttered something, grinning, which sounded like “fresh meat”

Sal took one look at Em, sighed, and said “Hope you brought some other shoes, pet”

I sighed myself. “I told her, but she goes on about fashion…”

Em produced an even bigger sigh, theatrically tossing her curls. “When you have a mother-in-law that looks like mine, you have no choice!”

That produced a girly giggling fit, and I just raised my eyebrows at the other men in a bonding recognition of female incomprehensibility. Bill was all smiles.

“Just remember, everything you know, I taught you, so you can’t go wrong! Just don’t bugger them up before I get them, OK?”

New academic year, new life. Tom and Sally had wed that Summer, on the beach in St Lucia, their wedding present from Brian and Karen, and I had delighted in the warm seas and tropical smells, ending up with seriously female tan lines. I could’ve done without the mossies though; not as swarming as midges, but steadily irritating before, during and after. Em had suffered almost as much as me, as we were both fair-skinned, but I had memories of her on the beach, and photos….the horrors of that place went further away each day I was loved and cared for, and I felt almost whole. The more my wife, in the words of the service, worshipped my body with hers, the more I was able to put aside that sense of wrongness I would always feel, the more I could accept that however I looked, I was loved for myself.

It was time. With a mutter from Hilda of “Morituri te salutamus” we stepped out of our room. Many years later, when I saw the film “Reservoir Dogs”, I thought of that first day.

“Let’s go to work”

It was nowhere near as bad as I had expected, for I was using Bill’s technique as much as possible. We had a curriculum to teach, but he believed in setting research targets rather than burying the kids in dry facts. I had come to an arrangement with Sid, and he had expanded the library’s history section n the appropriate areas. The children would have to ferret through the books to find the answers, and as Bill had explained, we were trying to teach them how to learn, not how to remember.

“Morning all, My name is Mr Jones, and I am your new history teacher. My wife is going to be teaching you English, so you have a double act to face. You see, even though we are married, we still talk to each other, so be very careful!”

I caught the first mutters, as I had expected, and there was that word “tits” there, but they would learn, in all senses. I wasn’t there to grandstand, but to try and give them a life, as so many had done for me.

“Right….the Romans. What have the Romans ever done for us?”

That got the expected laugh, and we were rolling.

I caught up with Emily at first break. “OK?”

She smiled, her face alight. “What a buzz! I think I was born for this!”

Sally put her hand on her arm. “Wait until you have to start marking. That generally pricks the bubble”

Bill called across “And when the boys discover what girls are for! Classrooms get very interesting then!”

A cup of bad coffee, and then back in. It was great.

We had a meal out to celebrate, that evening, just a curry in the local Indian, with a bottle of sweet German wine to wash it down, and to toast our new life.

A few weeks into our career, we had a visit from my brother, over from Loughborough with Hildi the longjumper. Iain seemed a little nervous for some reason, and asked if we could have a little chat out in the garden.

“What’s up, mate?”

“I’ve been doing a lot of thinking, Stevie…please bear with me. This is going to sound odd, but I’ve been doing a lot of shagging”

I started to laugh. “What bloke wouldn’t? She’s gorgeous!”

He was pink. “Yeah, yeah, she is, and because we both have studies, careers…look, it’s the contraception bit. Every time I put one on, I end up thinking of you, because you can’t, and…I love you, Stevie, and it hurts that what I try and avoid you can’t ever have. Does that make sense?”

It did. I had often wondered about children, and the thought that we were both so involved in teaching, that perhaps we were trying to sublimate things. I knew that Emily would have loved children, but after Mitchell there wasn’t the option. There was something more to what Iain was on about, though.

“So I did some thinking, Stevie. Hear me out…whatever it was n you that kept you short didn’t come through to me, and, well, we can’t really get much closer than brothers, and, if, em, do you see?”

I did, and I loved him for it. I put on a serious voice. “Iain Jones, you are not shagging my wife!”

“No, no, Hildi would kill me, but there are ways….”

“Stay here.”

I went for Emily, and explained quietly his offer. To my surprise, she burst into tears, ran out into the garden and kissed him hard. When I caught up, she was still crying.

“More than almost anything, my love, but I worried about hurting you. If, if we can, then, oh shit, I can’t talk straight”

We brought Hildi in on the conversation, and then took a drive out to Brian’s. I faced Karen squarely, took my wife’s and brother’s hands, and asked my stepmother.

“How would you like to become a grandma?”