TEACHING THE DEAD

    “I used to be a teacher.”
    “Oh yeah, so what did you teach?”
    “Special needs.”
    “What sort of special needs?”
    “They were dead.”
Mostie stared at his father long and hard. The old man just kept on looking straight ahead of him. 
    “The worst kids you can imagine.” He rolled up his sleeve. “See this scar.” It seemed a mile deep and went halfway round his forearm.    
    “I thought they’d have been a bit unresponsive, just gazed out of the window, that kind of thing.”
    “I never got them that far.”
Mostie pictured them all lined up outside the classroom propped up against one another and his father having got them quiet telling them to come in. He had got used to his father’s erratic odysseys and played along with the childlike absurdity, but God what was really consuming his mind? Was it a single event, an accumulation of plain and simple vicissitudes of life or the creeping results of a food scare? On the face of it he had been pretty successful in work and women. For most of his working life he had been an exemplary teacher of Ancient History at the grammar school where he met Jacqueline, a French assistant at the time. He married her and lived happily for the most part though she died a premature death the best side of forty-five. Mostie made heavy weather of it, disappearing into a shell for months, but his father, you could almost say, took it in his stride. No, it was probably just as the doctors said, plain old degenerative brain disease. The old man yawned like a big cat and clapped his hands on his knees.
    “Don’t start pacing about. Tell me about your pupils dad.”
    “All they ever wanted to do was talk about football, so I had the Greeks and the Romans playing each other on the board, you know, Augustus at outside half. And that used to hold them. It’s not like that now of course. They don’t want to listen, only sit in front of computer screens. It’s a form of accountancy now, every minute is prescribed from the heavens above. After all the next test is just around the corner.”
It was possible to reach him once more, however fleeting, instead of grasping as best you could at his darting tail. But then he was rolling the sleeve back and trouble was once again inching across his eyes. 
    “I…I,” cracked his voice and he turned his head away and rubbed at his temples with his fingers. “Come back Saturday!” he bellowed and hauled himself gingerly to his feet, his legs looking thinner than Mostie could ever remember. Pacing up and down for a minute or two he then slumped back down onto the settee.     
    “It’s in the book.”
    “I’m sorry.”
    “THE BOOK. THE BLOODY BOOK!”
    “What’s in the bloody book dad?”
    “My..” and he floundered as he searched for the words that were being inexorably being looted from his vandalised brain. “My journal.”
    “It’s all right dad. You just sit there and relax. I’ll put on some tea.” To tell the truth he needed to be out of the room, to be alone with his grief. From now on, Mostie thought ruefully, he’s going to be here and he’s not going to be with me. We are estranged. I’ve lost him, he’s alive but I’m already bereaved.
    That evening after the old man had gone grunting up to his bed Mostie opened the crate and put his hands on the journal. Somehow now that he knew what the future held it didn’t seem like trespassing. It was actually written in an old school register and in a style that suggested he intended it to be read by someone else. He squatted down on the kitchen floor and began to read:
    “I had made strenuous efforts to be out of the building by four. But when I went to unlock the bike I saw that both tyres were flat.”
Someone in his class perhaps Mostie speculated. 
    “By the time I’d got both wheels pumped up again it was almost 4.15. I bombed along like the clappers to get to the lesson in time. You could never get them on the telephone. God only knows why. It was a bit of a downpour and I was none too confident of the brakes. Next up, it started hailing. I was soaked through to the skin and my hands were frozen to the handlebars. You know, that feeling in extremis of being made a mockery of by a combination of the fates, as if baboons were pelting me with nuts, and your own damned blockish nature. I had to keep my head down, what with the spray I couldn’t see ahead of me anyway. Then screech,thud, kerprang I came off, catapulted; sailing majestically over the handlebars and down onto a gratefully accepted but freezing mulch, which turned out to be somebody’s front garden. I must have smashed into the kerb and at some pace. As I rocked on my haunches I was terribly shaky, you know my lumbering body no longer has the same recovery threshold. When I pushed on my hands and tried to stand up I felt the shard of pain in my wrist. At the very least I’d cracked a bone. So I missed the lesson and the boy failed the following day’s test. Daniel Argyle was his name. I had been enlisted as his personal coach after hours by a rather over-anxious father in return for a few extra bob. I expected an angry message from his father when I eventually got home, but there wasn’t one. Then the boy, just fourteen and none too bright I have to tell you, was absent from school for a while so I posted an apology. It must have been nearly three weeks and I wore a sling throughout this time. Uncannily, just when it came off I received a phone call from Mr.Argyle."
    “Good evening Mr. Peterson it’s Clive Argyle here.”
    “Hello there. How is Daniel? I hear he’s been unwell. I’m sorry he didn’t pass the test though I shouldn’t fret yourself overly. It won’t affect his options.” 
    “Well, yes, that’s as maybe, but a sound education is very important as I’m sure you know if you’re going to get on in the world. He did try awfully hard, though he could have worked harder in, I think it was the last week of October, but let’s be frank he could have passed that test if you’d been there to help him. Would you make up the lesson?”
    “Certainly, and I’ll do it free of charge, on the house as it were.”
    “That won’t be necessary. Can you do tomorrow in the evening? It’s just that he’s not been well and he doesn’t seem to come round until after teatime. I’ll collect you in the car so if there are any mishaps it’ll be my fault. 7 pm on the dot. Is that ok?”
    “Er yes, sounds all right to me.” However when I put the receiver down I felt a surge of annoyance. Why did I offer to do it for free? And in the same breath I’d let myself be pushed into giving up an evening. In one moment he seems to be forgiving me and in the next breath making me feel guilty.
    I decided I didn’t care very much for Clive Argyle.
    When his car appeared I was already waiting outside the house despite the February chill. Clive Argyle was a squat man and, I suspect, was always dressed in a too-tight t-shirt no matter what the weather offered. His muscular frame could have been patented, yet his skin had the appearance of whale blubber. And what with his cropped black hair. . Formerly a police constable he now worked in the printing industry. Daniel I fancied would turn out taller. He was amiable enough in the car, but did seem slightly on edge. 
    We had not been gone long when he suddenly pulled up. 
    “An unscheduled stop,” I remarked somewhat testily.
    “I just want to show you something.”
    “Oh.”
He was already out of the car and fetching an object out of the boot. When I climbed out I saw that it was a shovel. 
    “Come with me,” he whispered pointing to the alley.
    “What’s going on Clive?”
    “Please.”
I began to back away. He took a pace forward and before I’d time to react he’d brought the shovel down with a toll upon my outstretched arm. I dropped the bag and clutched in an agony of disbelief at my shirt blushing crimson. Taking me by the shoulder, almost paternally, he said: “Nothing’s going to happen to you.” I was acutely aware of his strength and thought it wise to comply. In hindsight I dearly wished I hadn’t. He led me a short distance into the dark then we turned into the cemetery. I was already traumatised, in shock and, I fancy, very pale. He walked me somewhere out to a plot in the middle. I don’t remember clearly though I would come to know every exact detail in time. Handing me the tool he ordered me to start digging. 
    I was going to run at this point too, but a bloody revolver came out of his pocket. I stuck the shovel in the soil simply wanting to get it over with as soon as possible, trying to commit every detail of his face and actions to memory. Wincing from the pain in my arm at several points I thought my legs were going to give way. When the coffin was laid bare he gestured to me to prise it open and I braced myself, fighting an ancient primeval fear. 
    “You’ve brought your books I presume.”
I nodded.
    “Sit on the edge of the box and begin the lesson.”
I looked only once at the boy’s face bathed in the moonlight on each occasion he dragged me out here. I tried to laugh it off by telling myself that he seemed almost as bored as my fifth form. When the hour was up he ordered me to tidy up, kicking some of the earth back in himself. When we got back to the car I didn’t say a word, I was too frightened to call him a sick man, and he handed me my payment. I waved it away. He didn’t seem to understand and anger flashed in his eyes so I took it. 
    “I’ll drive you back.” 
    “That won’t be necessary,” I stuttered.
Then I got in. 
    “It’s actually much closer for you here.”
As we pulled up at the house he produced the gun again. 
    “No police. Until next week then.”
It was almost midnight. I’d been gone nearly five hours. I would need an alibi for Jacqueline. Strange how she never commented on how quiet I seemed. She must have assumed Art Appreciation class was tiring. Daniel is sixteen now, past the age of compulsory schooling. After two years and three months I am no longer obliged to teach him.

Adrian Cross

THE BACK ALLEYS OF LOST SOULS

The back alleys have all turned green
because you walked in and sang.
They were waiting, the wind hung over them,
ready to rustle their hearts, but it knew
better than to cross your timing.

The cracks all opened and sprouted.
The birds helped of course, as they always do
if you watch them and have patience.
It was they who gave you the note,
and the shunting trains were your back-up.

The back alleys have all turned green, here.
Others have heard of you and wait
behind corners, in the shadows beyond street lights.
There's no rest for a lover who's smitten
with the back-alley people.

Lucy Brennan