Stepping through the school gates into the deserted playground, Roger could already feel the heat of the morning sun bouncing off the expanse of tarmac. Although he enjoyed his job and his time spent with a class full of eleven year olds, he had to admit he preferred this time of the morning, before they or anyone else arrived. Especially now, the height of summer.
Each morning, his journey to work began with a stroll through the park, followed by a bus ride across the awakening city, Another short walk from the stop, a couple of fags along the way, and there he was, striding onto the school grounds.
For the next forty minutes or so, he would be alone. He’d mark a few books, pin up some art or poems, drink his tea and have at least one more smoke before the noise of the day began.
Not so long ago, National Service had forced him into a routine of enforced early morning activity, usually of a futile nature. Since coming home he’d resolved that, even though life would involve rising each morning to earn a living, he’d do it in his own good time. There’d be no rushing at the call of bugle or barking order. Ironically, this luxury of a slow start to the day would mean being out of bed just as early.
As he expected, the school’s main door was already unlocked. Bill the caretaker would have opened up, mopped floors, cleaned the rooms he’d left the night before and then gone off for his breakfast. Another Capstan lit, Roger’s tall figure swirled in and across the hall with its squeaking wooden floor and high vaulted ceiling. As many schools built during the Victorian era, the classrooms were arranged around it. His was at the far end.
Once inside, he removed his raincoat and hat and hung them on the back of his store cupboard door. A quick look round, grab the half dozen exercise books he’d not had time to finish marking yesterday and off back to the staff room for a tea. Bill always left him enough in the pot for his first cup.
The staff room chairs were not the most comfortable items of furniture but they were softer than the one behind his desk in the classroom. He lowered himself into one, stubbed his cig into the communal ashtray, provided courtesy of Hammond’s ales, from some long forgotten lunchtime session, took a gulp of tea and opened the first exercise book. Having already dealt with thirty or so covering exactly the same exercise the day before, he was able to get through these last few in the time it took him to drain his cup.
The second pot was his responsibility to make. He’d already set the electric kettle on to boil and now it was on the point of whistling, he dropped several spoonfuls of tea into the huge pot before filling it with the frothing hot water. Leaving it to mash, he lit another cig and set off back to his classroom. He knew it wouldn’t be too long before others would be arriving and he wasn’t ready for conversation yet.
His class had been copying their poems onto paper the previous afternoon ‘for best’. He’d cleared the walls at either side of the blackboard while they’d all sat, concentrating in the summer heat, copying neatly like their lives depended on it. Now he was ready to pin them up.
He smiled to himself while he worked. He still couldn’t believe how life had changed so much in barely three months. As late as last Spring he’d been sweating out in Malaya, counting the days, ticking off the hours before he’d be home. They’d always said the most dangerous time would be the last week or two, and they were right. He’d concentrated so hard when out on patrol, determined not to get shot or blown to bits.
He’d made it all the way back to Catterick, with less than a fortnight to go before he’d be back in civvy street.
Then the nightmares had begun. The things he’d seen and done back in Malaya had suddenly become the main feature each night right inside his head. While out there, he’d shrugged off all the events that now haunted him, almost as soon as his eyes closed.
It was difficult to believe now how rapid his decline had been. Lack of sleep had led to being late out of bed, failed inspections, punishments, further resentment, more nightmares, more punishments …
Within a week he’d left. Just walked out.
Then there’d been a blank spell that even now he struggled to remember. A time of wandering; living rough, casual work. He’d even begged at one point. He’d had enough sense and guile to keep ahead of the authorities. He’d stayed away from the family home. Telephoned his sister though. Reassured, and persuaded her not to reveal the contact.
It took time, but he eventually began to feel better. Began to assume the M.P. s had either given up or had other priorities. His route back to permanent employment and respectability had been surprisingly simple.
He’d got lucky at this, the second school he’d visited. Told enough of the truth to be convincing. Got his sister to send them his teaching certificate, and he was in. Young, fit male teachers were in short supply.
And now here he was, pinning kids’ poems on a wall. Not the most dramatic of jobs, but he was content. He’d had enough drama. It was the quiet life for him from now on.
He never saw the door open. He heard the footsteps though. He turned, to see the headmaster, flanked by the two military policemen. He stood, smiling sheepishly, resting his hand casually in his trouser pockets, glancing past the men to the high windows at the back of the room.
There were two tiny faces, struggling to see inside, noses flattened against the glass.
The small boys came early to the hanging.
The first line of a book he’d once read, when? Almost thirty-five years later? Of all that could’ve triggered the memory, that had done it. It had made him smile.
He’d remembered those two lads. They had come early and it had been a kind of hanging. They’d often done it before - peered into the room to see what changes he’d made overnight. They might even have been there then to discover whether their poems had gained a place on the wall.
They got more than they’d ever expected on that summer morning. A military vehicle and a police car in the playground. The headmaster with other huge uniformed men. And Mr Carter being brought of the school between them and bundled away, never to be seen again.