It had been a long time since I’d sat at the kitchen table, my head down on my arms, crying at three o’clock in the morning. Ivo, out for some bonus exercise, paused from time to time in his exploration of the area and watched me. Probably he had his eye on the little heap of tissues I was rendering soggy and unchewable. I pushed a dry one across to him. He sat on his haunches and shredded it with enthusiasm. I usually reserved that sort of shredding – in my case metaphorical – for a weak essay by a good student. Funny thing, being a teacher. I’d have given a weak student producing the same essay a veritable bouquet of praise. But I’d have given both the same mark.
I’d certainly got weak students now. They were some of the overseas batch whose English Bowen had asked me to bring up to standard so they could benefit from the courses they were taking. Most of them had been steaming ahead – nothing much to do with my efforts: they were so intelligent, highly motivated and enthusiastic almost any halfway decent teacher could have got results. But there was a group of about twelve who I was absolutely unable to help. The clever teaching methods I was supposed to be basing my dissertation on were proving useless. Which suggested, very forcibly, that neither my methods nor my dissertation had much value. Or that the methods were only useful to young people like those at Murdock and at Muntz, who’d been born in this country to non-English speaking parents. Come to think of it, why had I ever assumed that speech patterns of people from Mirpur should be anything like those from the Pacific Rim, where this group seemed to have come from? Yes, I was a failure.
Ivo transferred his attention from the tissue to the chocolate biscuits in which I’d decided to seek consolation.
It would have been unkind – and indeed foolhardy – to try to separate him from the piece he was currently attacking, but I’d had the strongest of warnings. Sweet biscuits would damage not only his teeth but also his digestive system and probably his kidneys. Wholemeal might be given in moderation: chocolate wholemeal were verboten.
And, come to think of it, I was supposed to be looking after my teeth, etc., etc., with the important addition of my figure. So why I was indulging myself like this goodness knows. Particularly as my patent cure for insomnia – cupboard cleaning – had always been very successful. The principle was that any self-respecting brain would much rather be tucked up asleep than padding round a cold kitchen cleaning out cupboards. If you treated yourself with milky drinks and a good book, your brain would think that this was a good idea and get into the habit of waking you for the next little feast.
I explained all this to Ivo as I scooped him, and his fragment of forbidden food, back into his aquarium. He was so impressed he promptly disappeared into the large jam jar he used as his bedroom and buried himself in shredded tissue.
There was nothing left for me but to do the human equivalent.
The logical thing to do – as the cold light of the following morning showed clearly – was to go and talk to my tutor. How many hours had I spent with tutees who were unhappy, inadequate or simply in need of a friendly shoulder? But despite his outward cuddliness, I suspected Tom Bowen’s shoulders would not welcome a tearful student, especially after our last encounter. What I’d better do was talk to him about his proposed dinner party – venue, menu, prices – and slip my problems in as an aside when he felt more mellow. Except that that would be to mix two parts of our professional relationship best kept apart.
I spent ten minutes at the computer adjusting upwards the prices of my dinner-party menus. None of these was fixed; I always discussed them in detail with the host or hostess. I’d want to see what facilities they could offer for cooking at their house. After all, the less of my own gas and electricity I used, the lower my prices would be. I’d certainly rather use their china – there was always more incentive for them to be careful with it. Glasses ditto.
There. Ready for me to show Bowen. Teachers’ discount indeed!
If I found it hard to adjust to the large seminars, I couldn’t believe the sight of all the students pouring out of the lecture theatre this morning. These weren’t on the M.Ed. course; to join this you had to have some experience as a teacher. These were on the Post-graduate Certificate in Education. In other words, they’d just graduated and were now being trained as new teachers. All these young lemmings hurtling into teaching. And in such numbers! In my undergraduate days, your absence was literally conspicuous, and a responsible lecturer would buttonhole you to demand why you’d skipped the session on irregular Anglo-Saxon verbs, or whatever. One particular woman always followed up the previous week’s work with a nasty little test, much to our horror in those laid-back days. But we didn’t miss many of her classes. Nor many of the others, to be honest. In retrospect, at least.
I fell into step with the student who’d given Carla the hard time at yesterday’s seminar. He flashed his teeth at me, reminding me for a moment of Ivo.
‘It may be tough at my place,’ he said, ‘but at least we don’t have to teach fifty of them at a time.’
I nodded, sighing. Perhaps for their misplaced idealism; perhaps for the loss of mine. Or perhaps because we’d got a three-hour session scheduled for this evening. There were so few of us taking this full-time M.Ed. course we had to be fitted in with people brave enough to try to study part time and teach full time. And what were we doing this evening? A compulsory module: Managing the Curriculum.
‘Ah, yes. With Hoffman, isn’t it?’ Bald-head said. ‘He’s not bad, I suppose. A bit intense. Talks too much, of course.’
That was Bald-head speak for controlling the class discussion so that no one person – such as Bald-head – dominated it. ‘All to good purpose,’ I said. ‘He divides the time well.’ Like I did with such enormously long classes. ‘And I do like an allusive teacher—’
‘Showing off, if you ask me. But he’s better than that stupid American woman.’
‘American?’
‘Carla Pentowski or whatever she calls herself. All icing and no cake.’
I’m supposed to be observant and I’d never noticed that Carla was anything other than English. She had all the right rhythms for a native English speaker, accentuated words and sentences in the right places and – yes, I’d have marked her down as Home Counties, overlaid by Oxbridge or good redbrick. ‘American?’ I repeated. With someone like this guy, there’d be no point in asking if he was sure. He would be. Absolutely positive.
‘There’s no doubt about it,’ he said. ‘Those “t” sounds come out much closer to “d”, every time. You listen. You’ll see.’
‘Or hear,’ I couldn’t stop myself amending. ‘I thought she tried very hard yesterday. It was the students that were the problem. It must have been like wading through custard.’
‘Isn’t a good teacher supposed to overcome that sort of problem? And if they’re teaching us, who are supposed to be good, experienced teachers, shouldn’t they be excellent teachers? After all, they’re supposed to be giving us the benefit of their experience, not the other way round.’
I came to a standstill by the refectory door and stared at him. And smiled. Of course! From nowhere came the idea how I could check up on these problem students of mine! Their application forms!
I’m told – by one who knows, but might still be biased – that when I smile my face lights up like a Hallowe’en lantern. So my fellow student got the full benefit. He responded with a beam of his own. ‘You’ll join me for coffee?’ he asked, his voice modulating a couple of notes lower.
That smile had let me in for a chatting up, hadn’t it? I’d have to cool the conversation considerably. ‘OK,’ I said, reaching for my purse. ‘Actually, a penny just dropped while you were speaking. I’ve got this group of new South-East Asian students whose English doesn’t seem to be getting anywhere at all. I’m supposed to be preparing them for this course, and was wondering why I was doing so badly.’
‘Those dim women?’ he flung over his shoulder as he reached for a muesli bar.
‘I can’t communicate with them well enough to tell if they’re dim,’ I snapped. ‘And that’s what’s been worrying me – still is! Do you remember the application form we all had to fill in? There was a section there asking what English language qualifications overseas applicants were offering.’
‘I suppose the place was low on numbers.’ Perhaps he didn’t intend to be as dismissive as he sounded. ‘Doesn’t your college ever bend the rules when you’re a few students light? I know my last one did. Not this one, though. Francis Asbury.’
At least I knew better than to shake his hand and call him Francis.
He continued, ‘I always wanted to break the rules at Asbury – considering we’re named after such a pious old gent. You know, the Methodist born in Great Barr.’
I nodded. I did indeed, and wasn’t sorry to forestall him. ‘The first American Methodist Bishop, wasn’t he?’
Sandwell – which was the artificial name for a conglomeration of good old Black Country towns such as Smethwick and West Bromwich – had seen fit to commemorate him with a further education college, managed with such imagination and commitment I’d always been green with envy. Asbury had been born and lived in the area and had seen the Methodist light in the 1760s, eventually emigrating to preach the word over there. Perhaps naming a college after him was some sort of reparation for the riotous way earlier denizens of the area had dealt with Asbury’s mentor, John Wesley.
It would actually have been nice to know my fellow student’s name without having to do the obvious thing, which was of course to ask him. But we’d seemed, thanks to my banana grin, to have moved on to an altogether too intimate footing for me to want to encourage him. And here he was, insisting on paying for my coffee, and pulling back a chair for me, as if we were in some up-market wine bar. I nodded my thanks. No way would I utter the fatal words, I’ll pay for the next one, then. With a bit of luck he wouldn’t know my name either, so we could do a straight exchange, preferably initiated by him. If the worst came to the worst I’d have to resort to peering at his files in case he was public-spirited – or brash – enough to bruit his name to the world.
He soon returned to the attack on Carla Pentowski. Unlike me, he didn’t consider she’d prepared enough. Probably she wasn’t well enough grounded in her subject. Here he launched into a scathing attack on the standards of American universities.
‘Oh, yes,’ he was saying, ‘I did some research there for my Master’s – just after my first degree. Their Master’s was just about the same level as my first degree.’
‘Is it still the case?’ I asked, thinking about the huge expansion of the student population of British universities and general rumours about dumbing down.
He shrugged. So this was a man who preferred not to clutter his prejudices with facts.
‘What are you doing now?’ he asked, teeth in evidence. He turned on a twinkle in his rather cold blue eyes.
My smile didn’t attempt to get past the end of my nose. ‘Some work.’
His smile changed the twinkle to a dazzle. ‘Why don’t we meet up for some lunch?’
I knew it. But he was spared a put-down by the appearance of Tom Bowen, who strode up to the table and addressed me as if I were on my own.
‘Could we sort out that dinner?’ he asked.
I was so irritated by his rudeness that I ended up apologising to Anon for the swiftness of my exit. But I made no reference to lunch.
Bowen’s interest had been grabbed by the information on my estimate that cooking at his house would reduce the costs, and he insisted on taking me there immediately. He drove a newish Saab, fast and rather fussily. But then, I’d been spoilt by several years of Chris’s driving, and then by all too few journeys with Mike. Sometimes – like this moment – I missed him so much tears would come to my eyes.
Bowen parked with a flourish outside a big 1930s house in Handsworth Wood. Everyone knows about the urban decay and consequent racial tension that afflicted Handsworth. Except they didn’t, of course: they afflicted Lozells, an even more deprived district, only for some reason no one ever remembers that. Anyway, Handsworth Wood is an altogether more affluent neighbourhood than Handsworth. Very couth.
So was Bowen’s house. He had to tackle two locks to admit us, but to my surprise hadn’t bothered to use his burglar alarm system. If I ever warmed to him enough, I could pass on the advice of one of Chris’s colleagues – that no lock was impenetrable and it was a good idea to deter casual burglars with a lot of noise. There were also a couple of windows open upstairs.
I stepped into the hall. A staircase rose on my left, ran in the form of a landing straight ahead, and carried onto a second floor on my right. The remarkable effect was topped by a pyramidal skylight, the base possibly six feet square. The rest of the house hadn’t been small to start with, but some tasteful extensions at the rear provided an inevitable conservatory and a huge and well-planned kitchen. I had to stuff my hands into my pockets to stop myself rubbing them in glee. Yes, a good triangular working pattern, everything at the right height, a wonderful range of implements, from le Creuset casseroles to Sabatier knives, plus everything in between. A food processor and an old-fashioned Kenwood Chef jostled a tower double oven, separate hob and versatile microwave. So why wasn’t the person who’d chosen all these delights going to use them on Friday?
The dining room was dominated by a long Victorian multi-leaved table, eight chairs each side.
‘Are all the leaves in?’ I asked, probably failing to sound casual.
‘I can add another couple.’
All the chairs except the carvers matched. And they matched each other. Sets of old chairs are expensive, and the price goes up exponentially, so eight chairs cost more than twice as much as four, and sixteen far more than four times as much.
‘Would that mean bringing in different chairs?’
‘I’ve another couple of pairs tucked away.’
I paced the room. I gestured the space I’d need for the heated trolley I preferred to bring with me – and then noticed he had a larger model ready in place.
‘It might be a bit tight for serving if you have more than this number of covers,’ I said, enjoying a tiny bit of jargon. ‘Which reminds me—’
‘Don’t worry. You won’t have to serve. Or get anywhere near the washing-up. You do the skilled work. I’ll sort out the unskilled.’
I raised an eyebrow.
‘OK, so serving’s skilled. I’ll make sure they can do that. A couple of students,’ he added casually.
‘You’ll recruit them?’ It was best in this job to tie up every possible loose end.
‘I said that, didn’t I?’
If I was surprised by his vehemence, I wouldn’t let it faze me. ‘So all I have to do is buy the food and cook it.’ I ticked off items in my notepad. ‘Now, as I told you, the menu is up to you. You can either have one of the menus I’ve suggested—’ I tapped the folder I’d given him – ‘or you can tell me what you want and if I can cook it I will.’
‘Pork,’ he said promptly. ‘I want pork. Good old-fashioned roast pork.’
‘Stuffed with apricots?’
He shook his head. ‘I ate at this auberge once.’ His face softened in a reminiscent smile. ‘At this long table, cheek by jowl with all these French peasants. And they served roast pork with some sort of mashed potato. Only it wasn’t, if you see what I mean.’
I nodded. ‘Probably pommes boulangère – cooked with herbs and onions and stock.’ And a real bonus for a busy cook, as it took very little preparation and looked after itself. I knew just the sort of roast pork to go with it.
‘And some veges. Now, I’m a soup man. So none of your fiddly little starters. Oh, except some canapés would be nice. With the drinks.’
‘That’d bump up the price a bit,’ I pointed out.
He shrugged. ‘How are you on wine?’
‘Some hosts leave it to me, some prefer to deal with that themselves.’
‘So you don’t get a cut! Do you charge corkage if I use my own?’
‘I’m a caterer, Dr Bowen, not a restaurant. Now, I usually use organic ingredients wherever possible. You may find this raises the prices slightly but I’m sure you’ll agree the quality is reflected in the flavour.’
‘I—’
There was a slight noise from somewhere upstairs.
‘Right, Sophie,’ he said, ‘that’s settled then. Work out your costs and let me have the details tomorrow. And remember that staff discount, eh?’ He pulled back his cuff ostentatiously. ‘Time we were getting back to the treadmill. I assume you’d like a lift?’
I was out of the front door before I realised, and he was double-locking it again. But still he didn’t set that alarm.