Some years ago I created an imaginary town called Ashleigh in which to set my stories, This was one of the first I set there. Hope you enjoy it.
AM I GOOD ENOUGH?
It struck Dennis Hill as curious that the question only presented itself to him when, in a sense, it no longer mattered if he was good enough. Not so much a question of ‘am I good enough?’ but ’ was I ever good enough?”
For the thirty years he had been a teacher, most of them at Gratton Lane Comprehensive, it had never occurred to him to question his effectiveness in the job. Now on the very day he was due to retire, he found himself not only uncomfortably challenged on the issue, but also wondering whether his failure to ask the question earlier was not, itself, an indication of his unworthiness. Was it evidence of a level of arrogance on his part that probably disqualified him from ever being a really effective teacher?
In the end it was not the retirement day he had expected. That, he had always imagined, would be a day suffused with a warm glow of personal satisfaction in a lifetimes work completed, with many fine speeches and expressions of appreciation from both pupils and fellow members of staff. He would have the opportunity he imagined to make a speech, not too long, but with a few wry observations on the current state of education. Then, as a few tears were shed he would take his final leave of the Gratton Lane assembly hall, and walk off through the school gates with head held high ….. and catch the bus home! (Living only a few miles from the school he had never seen the necessity of buying a car, or even learning to drive.)
It was perhaps ironical, because he was probably the only member of staff never to have had a problem with her, that it was Trish Henry, the scourge of the 4th. year who brought his fantasy crashing down. So much so that when, later on that final school day, when he was told by the Henry Leighton, the head, that the planned formal presentation would need to be postponed until after the summer vacation., he was quite relieved. The reason given was that only a few members of staff were able to remain behind that evening. Clearly a weak excuse but nonetheless welcome because it allowed him to slip out of the building without any fuss and escape almost unnoticed into retirement..
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He had come to teaching in his early twenties shortly after he and Shirley got married, and after he had tried his hand at a number of jobs without any great success in any of them. It was Shirley who, prompted by his natural empathy with children suggested he consider becoming a teacher. It was also she who supported him through training college; even enduring her parents disapproval of a situation where their daughter supported a husband who, in their view, ‘whiled away his time sitting in a library reading books!’
“It’s something we both believe he has to do,” Shirley had explained but there was no doubting that it had been a real struggle and his teaching certificate was only achieved at a cost.
For one thing it had meant Shirley working long hours of overtime at the supermarket, hours which often left her too exhausted at weekends to keep up with his socialising. Consequently they slipped into a married routine which resulted in them having few shared experiences. When he finally did qualify, and they could have started the family they both wanted Shirley’s health had broken down and having children of their own had become impossible. He had often wondered if over the years the pupils he taught had not become substitutes for the children Shirley could not give him?
He took to classroom work like the proverbial fish into water and his enthusiasm for his two subjects, English and Drama had, in the early years, been infectious and made him popular with both pupils and staff. But his late nights and weekends spent at school, especially when exams or a production were in the offing meant that Shirley saw even less of him than before.
Mind you, she never complained. Not even during her increasingly frequent periods of illness when she could have done with his help around the house and garden they had bought. He had insisted on a large house, and garden, as being commensurate with his position. Insisted on holding regular dinner parties, (’networking’ he called it,) with other members of staff, fellow teachers, and friends held over from his student days. Long evenings of ’ teacher talk’ around the dining room table which she found difficult to follow, or contribute too. Eventually she learned to just slip away to the bedroom when the meal was over, and listen to the radio, or read a book until it was time for the guests to leave. If her absence was commented upon at all Dennis usually laughed it off as one of ‘Shirley’s headaches!”
“You have your job to do,” she always commented if he enquired whether she minded being left out of things so much. Now, as he thought back over those years, he wondered why she had never added “… and you’re good at it!” Was it really because she saw no reason to state the obvious, or was it because to tell a lie would devalue what little relationship they still had?
Trish Henry had collided with him that morning just inside the entrance to the school. Running inside the building was strictly forbidden, but Trish was not the sort of girl to let a rule prevent her from doing what she wished; in this case, catch up with a boy from the sixth year who had just thrown her lunch bag into the boys toilet, and then himself run off towards the stairwell.
Dennis, preoccupied with his own thoughts on this his ‘ special day’, had not seen her coming. The collision not only scattered the books and papers he was carrying all over the tiled floor, but knocked the breath out of his body as well.
“Shit,” Trish exclaimed, took a step backwards, and then, concluding that attack represented the most effective defence, blurted out angrily, “Why don’t yer watch where yer goin’?”
In his younger days Dennis’s response would have been to laugh, make a jocular reply, and defuse the girls insolence with humour. He often found Trish quite amusing and succinct in her observations and when she was not trying to justify her reputation as ‘the pupil from hell’, she revealed real intelligence. But ‘the day that was in it,’ and the sudden thump as a heavily built fifteen year old crashed into his chest distracted him. He was no longer a young man, and with the passage of time almost all his former fire and enthusiasm for the job had dissipated.
Staff ‘do’s’ in pubs and clubs that went on until the early hours had ceased long ago, and lately even the dinner parties had become few and far between. Almost unnoticed, he now realised, his dignity as a teacher had become what defined him rather than his effectiveness. It had been a milestone in his life when, checking the list of first years one September he had recognised the name of a former pupils child. Now when younger members of staff deferred to him for advice he suspected they did it more to establish what would be out of date and to be avoided than to find out what they should do.
Certainly they did not expect to receive words of encouragement. The last time he complimented one of the younger teachers she had reacted as if she thought he might be ill!
Of course Shirley’s death had affected him badly, making him more introverted and insecure. He could not help blaming himself to a certain extent for not reacting more positively to her increasingly frequent periods of illness and lethargy.
“You have a lie in today,” had been his response on that last morning he left her for school. “I can get something to eat on the way in, and the few extra hours in bed will do you the world of good.”
She had nodded wearily, rested her head back onto the pillow, but said nothing. Her eyes were closed as he left her.
Of course it was not his fault that a parents meeting had kept him late at school that evening and when he got home and found no lights on in the house he had looked into the bedroom where Shirley still lay in the bed. He still shuddered when he recalled how still and quiet she had looked under the duvet. Why on earth hadn’t he gone over to the bed and touched her?
Instead deciding it was better to let her sleep he had sighed, closed the bedroom door and slept in the guest room that night.
The doctor later confirmed that she must have died sometime during the morning. “In her sleep I imagine,” he had suggested as if he thought this might help Dennis cope with his loss. “Her heart just gave up the struggle.”
What struggle? It had bothered Dennis ever since that he had no idea what she might have been struggling against. “ Surely I would have known,” he often mused, “… wouldn’t I?”
“You were running,” he managed to gasp at Trish Henry when his breathing stabilised sufficiently for him to speak. She, aware that her classmates were standing nearby watching the confrontation develop went straight into her ‘ leader of the pack’ mode. She rested one hand on her hip, and brought her head up defiantly.
“So what?” she demanded.
He took another deep breath to steady himself. Shirley’s death had been six years ago but had been one of the factors that prompted him to seek early retirement. His lump sum and pension would be reduced but would still provide him with enough to live on. The house was paid for and now he would have the time to write the novel he had always believed he had in him. He was looking forward to retirement. But first he had to get through this last day…. And cope with Trish Henry!
“So it’s against the rules to run, “ he explained. He would try to be as patient and forbearing as the circumstances allowed… but he really could not let the incident pass. Not even today. “ I’ll have to put you on discipline report for this evening.”
She snorted dismissively. “We finish for the summer tonight… and in case you’ve forgotten Mister Hill you’re finishin’ fer good. So what’ll yer do if I don’t turn up?”
Her classmates were beginning to giggle and, emboldened, she decided to pree home her attack. “Send a note ‘ome te mi mum and dad? What d’yer think they’re goin’ ter do wiv it? Neither o’ them can bloody read or write. They’ll probably wipe their arses wiv it!”
Her friends guffawed with laughter and Dennis’s shoulders sagged wearily. He really was too tired to continue with his attempted correction. He pointed towards the papers scattered all over the floor.
“ Help me pick them up,” he muttered.
“ You dropped ‘em, you pick ‘em up”
She turned and started to walk towards the boys lavatory intending to retrieve her lunch box, but when she reached the door she turned back towards him. She seemed to recall something she had read, or heard, somewhere, and a pitying look crept into her eyes.
“ Tell me sir,” she asked in a voice loud enough to be heard by everyone, and challenging enough to be still ringing in his ears that evening as he rode home on the bus. “ Were you always this useless and pathetic, or is it summat you ‘ad te be trained for?”
THE END.
