“YOU A GEEZER, OR WHAT?”
Volume control wasn’t his strong suit, evidently. Thankfully, the bus was already there, so I stepped on as if he hadn’t spoken, eructated, puked, whatever. Good start to the day.
Usual start to the day.
Said bus was full of schoolkids, but then it would be, being a school bus. Down through the town, past the station, and then the hard left at the roundabout. Another day of fulfilling endeavour about to start.
At least the kettle was still warm in the staff room, and I was soon getting outside a coffee, trying to ignore half the gossip while doing my best to hear the more interesting stuff. It was often the first heads-up I would get of a potential work problem, usually preceded by a sly look my way before the new pearl would be diverged.
Nothing that morning, as we were all officially fixated on the school’s Magical Mystery Employee event in two days’ time. The Comp had been running the scheme for three years now, and it was a little repetitive, despite the fact that our ‘audience’ was necessarily in a state of flux as children came, got bigger and then either left at the appropriate age or were excluded or locked up, the little treasures. The format is a simple one: we gather together a group of adult workers, in casual clothing, and each is assigned a group of pupils for a version of ‘Twenty Questions’, or rather ‘What’s My Line?’
The adult participants remained mostly the same, though, so the day always ended up with most of the year, boys as well as girls, clustered round the air ambulance pilot. We’d thank the other players, feed them some tea and biscuits, and then try and peel the fans away from said pilot.
The day continued in its usual way as I attempted to impart sufficient knowledge of physics and chemistry to allow them to understand how, for example, a thermite bomb worked without actually delivering the expertise necessary for its construction.
That was the job of Mr Harris and his crew in Metalwork.
My first degree was in physics, and I found the idea of a blanket ‘science’ topic a little awkward. A quarter of my working week was spent teaching physics, proper, untainted-by-messy-stuff PHYSICS, in the local sixth form college, so I got some relief.
I once read on social media that the only real science is physics. Chemistry is a smelly approximation of real science, while biology is a wet, smelly and messy approximation. I can’t argue with that, but others did, and the thread had deteriorated into claims that maths is the only pure science, while other posters shouted about engineering, sometimes literally, as in all caps. Happy memories; I came back to the thread several times, with popcorn.
Back to the staffroom as I gathered up my bundle of marked work and headed into the jungle. I had Pegasus 3 for my first session, and they were usually fine. The afternoon, however, would bring the joys of Centaurus 4 and the use of Bunsen burners. That class was probably the primary future local source of pipe bombers, as well as containing one or two of the pupils most likely to try and misgender me to my face, usually for a dare.
Yes, the house names are all aero-engines. We all live and work next to a major airport, so it follows, but I am forever grateful they stuck with the products of Bristol and Rolls-Royce rather than including Napier. Houses named after birds, rivers, Greek myth and astronomy were fine. Having some named after offensive weapons like daggers and sabres might have given the little treasures ideas other than those I was employed to deliver.
Several hours later, and I was home, sitting on a patio chair with a teapot and mug in front of me, e-reader in my hand and the latest Chrissy Morris offering coming from my portable CD player and its earbuds. It was only early May, but the sun was out and warm enough for a spaghetti strap top and dithering over whether I should swap the tea for a jug of iced lemon squash. Two working days left for the week.
I was shocked awake by a hand on my arm, nearly knocking my tea flying as I realised I had been fast asleep. It was my gardener, Jules. I tugged out the earbuds, realising the music had been looping, and outside sounds rushed in.
“Sorry, Gemma, but you were fast asleep. I called you from the gate, but zilch. Hard day?”
I felt the side of the pot, and it was barely warm. I had really been out of it.
“They’re all hard ones, Jules. Like working in a sewage farm: turds arrive, get processed, depart for the wider world, only to be replaced by fresh ones. Sort of different same shit, different day. Yes, I know that’s mangled, but you know what I mean. I’m a scientist, not an English teacher. Got the acid burns in my lab coat sleeve an evryfink”
She laughed out loud.
“I always say dog drool on my shoes, but I don’t think I’m quite as, er, is ‘manic’ a bad word?”
“Told you: don’t teach English. You okay for Friday?”
“Um, yes, but that’s what I wanted to talk to you about. Sort of”
“How sort of sort of?”
“Got room for another Mysteron?”
I rose and headed for the kitchen, after doing the ‘Tea?’ thing with my hands and getting a nod. On with the kettle, and then the questions.
“What does she do?”
“Estate agent, for, er, his sins”
“His?”
Was that a blush? From Juliet? Pull your horns in, Miss Babbage.
“Grab a mug and a seat; I’ll bring the tea once it’s made”
She had that hesitation about her I had seen so often in pupils who felt that they had a problem they really needed to share, but couldn’t get out easily. It was usually something silly, like not doing a bit of homework, but there had been a few bullying cases I had encountered over the years, and then that case from Court Lodge, and a loving mother now doing three years on the nonce wing at Downview. Gently now, Gem.
I set the pot under its cosy onto the little plastic table and myself into my chair before smiling at Jules.
“If you need to talk about something, safe pair of ears here. If you can’t, still a safe space. Estate agent?”
She slumped a little, the blush rather more obvious, her voice low.
“Yeah. You probably remember him. Brian Copley”
“Bloody hell! Is he still, you know, um…”
“Good looking? Oh god, yes”
“How did you run into him? He… Jules, if I had been, you know, right bits, I’d have been tripping him up and falling down in front screaming ‘Take me now Bri!’. How did you rope him in? Forget that: first question stands”
She looked away for a second.
“Dog walking, initially. Then he needed a gardener”
“Ah. That really takes me back, woman. Nothing like a school… girl crush to rattle the old memory cage. Wasn’t he with that Layla Travers tart? Or was it Hannah bloody Sillitoe, that curly-haired slut?”
Oh. Old memories opening old wounds. Horns in, Babbage.
“Sorry, Jules. Bad memories”
“Got many of the same ones, love. Not nearly as well healed as we thought, are we?”
“Yeah. Anyway, moving on. Yes, we have a space for Friday, and I will let the others know to add an extra table in the assembly hall. Got good locks for the bike? You’ll need them at our place”
“Won’t be a problem”
“Okay then. When you see Brian, give him my lust, or rather not, but if you catch me drooling, please wipe my chin”
That brought a laugh, as well as another blush, so I asked her as gently as I could, “You still have the hots for him, then?”
She nodded, sharply, but with an odd smile.
“Who’s he seeing now, Jules? Last I heard, it was someone from the airport, Customs or something”
“Yup. One of their dog handlers, which is where his dog came from. Retired drugs dog”
I found myself laughing at the thought of the hound leading her to specific sorts of mushrooms, and had to explain. Jules laughed far more easily, shaking her head.
“You know me better than that, Gem. Anyway, got some St George’s in the pannier for you, along with some wood blewits. And a parasol”
“Oh, ta muchly! That’ll improve tonight’s dinner no end. Oh, and Brian? Still with the Cusser woman?”
“No. She buggered off, and not in a nice way”
“Ah. Who’s he seeing now?”
Her blush was vivid, and her voice was very faint, but I could still hear the word “Me”
Oh. My mouth opened and shut a few times as different replies offered themselves in turn, but all I could actually het out was “How?”
Her eyes were moist, unsurprisingly, but there was still a smile.
“Short version is that I met him and his dog, he needed our services. Saw his garden, and that needed MY services. Along came a bit of nastiness, which me and my boss, well, we helped sort it. He then asked me for drinks and a bite to eat”
“Does he, you know, KNOW?”
She just nodded. Like blood from a stone, this.
“When did he find out? Before or after---no. Forget that part of the question”
“Before asking me out, Gem. He ran into Hannah”
“Hannah as in Hannah-the-slut?”
“The same one”
“That cow has three of her brats at my school”
“Yeah, well, she saw me walking his dog and asked him if the rumours had been true. About being gay. Told him who I was”
“Cow!”
“Already agreed that”
“Still bears saying. How did he take it? And how did you find out what she’d said, anyway?”
“Bri told me. He… Brian Copley is a very, very deep man, and he said he’d been falling for me already, and when she said what she said, he sort of gave himself the Spanish Inquisition”
“Nobody expects the---”
“Yes. We all know that one. Anyway, we had the discussion in his back garden with the dog on his lap”
“And?”
“Then we each got rather drunk and he ordered too much pizza. Had some for breakfast the next day”
“You didn’t…?”
She shook her head, slowly.
“No. Spare bed”
There was a short pause before she added, “That time, anyway”
What was left of my professional teacher head kicked in.
“Are you all right, Jules? In yourself?”
She looked up at me, and the pain in her eyes was all too clear.
“I don’t know, Gem. I do know I love him. Think I always have done, right through school. Remember when he got that shiner?”
I did, far too well.
“Hannah again, shouting about ‘standing up for the fairy’, the way I remember it”
“That’s it. He was never nasty to me, never snide. Never up his own arse about being bloody gorgeous. Rare man, Brian”
“Oh indeed. I am just so glad I managed to hide who I was until I got to Uni. They’d have killed me, the sods”
“Oh indeed. Did their best for me, or to me, rather. We, us, Brian and me, well, we are off to the New Forest for a week’s camping and dog walking. One tent only. Dog bed in the porch”
Suddenly, her blush redoubled.
“I know what you want to ask, Gem, and the answer is, well, we’re both Thomas Tarts, and the answer is ‘bloody amazingly well’. If you take my meaning”
“You’ve?”
“We’ve. Yes. End of subject. I won’t need the locks, good or bad, because Bri will be driving me. He has some evening work, and so the morning’s his own, and Poochini’s is treating it as working hours in my case. Now, I am off to collect three dogs, give them a romp, and then… see what this night will bring”
I realised she was trying to be cocky, but like all teachers, I could smell the fear in her, so I reached out to take her hand.
“What are you frightened of, Jules?”
The smile was a thin one.
“Waking up, Gem. Either of us”