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Natalia looked down at the sheets in her hand. To be ordered by the Head to choose new staff just upped the absurdity another notch, but she cleared her throat and worked through the twenty or so faces, crossing through a few pictures and then going back to read the captions on the others, feeling the pressure of her audience ease as Neill was now frowning at his computer screen.
‘How the fuck do I make these cells add up!’ he growled.
She looked up. ‘Excel?’
‘Yeah.’
‘I know how. Do you want me to show you?’
He raised both palms in the air, as she got up and entered the cologne-scented side of his desk with a prickle of goosebumps. His navy-blue trousered thighs spread wide, she couldn’t help her knee nudging into the side of one as she leaned to point to the ‘SUM’ symbol on the top right of the screen.
‘Highlight the figures you want to add up. Then press that.’
‘I did that.’
‘No, you’ve got to highlight them first. Drag down. No, hold and drag—’
She reached for the mouse, her hand momentarily colliding with the warm hirsute topside of his fingers.
‘Oops, oh, sorry!’
‘The only thing I want to hold and drag right now is a fag,’ he clunked back his chair, his shoulder briefly brushing against her as he arose, his hand now weighing down on her shoulder with a husky murmur:
‘Sit and do it.’
Feeling privately honoured to lower herself into his warmed leather seat, she blinked at the bright columns of a spreadsheet entitled Recruitment and Renovations.
‘Erm, Neill?’
She glanced to where he was now perched on the window ledge clicking his lighter.
‘Hmm?’
He looked over slow-eyed, as though he were not a Headmaster at all, but some gentlemanly apparition who’d flown in to casually spectate a flustered secretary.
‘Sir, I need to show you what to do, so you know how to do it.’
‘Really.’
‘Yeahh…’
‘Need to finish my fag first.’
She clicked around adding up the columns, till the task was finished and she rotated her chair to the window in readiness. She took the moment of licence to watch him, one leg cocked up on the sill, puffing smoke as far out into the bleak sky as he could, a faint waft falling into the room, which she wondered whether would set the fire alarms off again.
‘Haven’t you got into trouble yet for that?’ she raised her voice.
‘Hmm? No. I’m the Head, darling.’ His leg was back on the floor and he was now stubbing out.
‘Yeah, but—’
‘Have you done it then?’
‘Yeah, but—’
‘Yeah, but.’ He stepped over, rotated her chair back to the screen, leaning his arms down heavily on the backrest so both she and the chair jolted backwards, his smoky waft upon her like a spell, his scratchy voice making the back of her neck bristle:
‘So go on then, show us what ta’ do, so I know ‘ow ta do it.’
‘I don’t talk like that.’
‘Teasing you is rather easy.’
‘Well this is just as easy. Highlight the column and then press SUM and then the total appears at the bottom. Yes?’
‘What if I don’t want it at t’bott-um?’
‘Huh?’
‘The suhh-m,’ he continued in Yorkshire dialect.
‘Oh, well, maybe if you just cut and paste the Total box, you can stick the bottom somewhere else. Yeah, that works. Now the bottom is—’
‘Stuck somewhere elts!’
‘That’s right.’
‘Well thank you very much Northern Nerd, or should I say spasibo, Miss Russian Roots - you may now stick your own bottom somewhere else,’ he finished.
‘That’s as much Russian as I know,’ as she arose.
‘Russian is easy. You just put the Rs the wrong way round.’
‘Arse, the wrong way round?’
‘Rs, Natalia. Goodness, you really have bottoms on the brain today!’
‘Stop it,’ she smirked, sliding back into her chair as he too reclined and cast a gleaming eye across the table.
‘Where’s the sheet of munters you were helping me with? I hope you used that Sharpie to desecrate the bottom-feeding, bottom of the barrels and save my eyes for… better bottoms.’
‘Got it down to eight.’
‘Eight? Get it down to four.’
‘I need tea. I only work for tea,’ she winked.
‘For coffee?’ He held over his takeaway cup from earlier.
‘Fuckoffy. It’s colder than Cohen.’
‘There’s a bird on there that looks like him.’
‘Didn’t you want to staple Kate Moss into the selection?’
‘Too good for this school, so I’d have to take my pen and desecrate her bottom too.’
‘Thought you might have already done that.’
‘Not with a pen.’
She hesitated, watching him clicking on his spreadsheet, seizing the moment of loosened formality to ask:
‘Does your, er… girlfriend mind you hoarding models from magazines?’
‘What girlfriend.’
‘You don't have one?’
‘You’re asking me if I have a girlfriend?’ he said, still frowning and clicking.
‘I mean, you know, a partner. I… know you don’t have a wife but—’
‘Partner, me? No, unfortunately not. Problem is I’m so busy at the moment I can’t get much further than my local pub.’
He continued clicking.
Curious to glean where he lived; precious information that would aid her hundreds of lone moments imagining where he drove back off to everyday, she ventured:
‘Where’s that?’
He glanced up. ‘First you ascertain my pathetic singledom then you want my address? Are you signing me up to Teacher Tinder or something like all the staff seem to be into matchmaking me?’
‘No no…!’ she laughed, a blush starting. ‘I just wondered which part of skanky Leeds you ended up in,’ she added slyly.
‘Out in the sticks, thank you very much. I bought a place on Wetherby Road when I moved up here.’ Hovering his fingers over his keyboard, he dropped into a murmur. ‘There’s a leggy lawyer lady at the pub in Scarcroft after me. Fairly attractive…’ He stabbed a key.
‘Oh?’
‘But her dialect is thicker than her make-up. Tried to kiss her, mainly to shut her up, and as my hand touched her hip she burst out laughing like a hyena and I swear it almost splintered my pint glass.’
She laughed. ‘She doesn’t sound like Scarcroft demographic!’
‘Neither are you Gipton demographic,’ he looked pointedly at her. ‘Am I better off in a council house there?’
‘Yee-ah…’ The unexpected compliment was like an indigestible nut she had to squirrel away in haste to quip back, ‘if you want to live in desolation on par with Hades.’
‘Is it just you and your mum?’
‘Yes. No siblings.’
‘No dad?’
‘He, er… left a long time ago.’
‘Oh. Really?’ he blinked. ‘Why’s that?’
‘I don’t know. Mum never talks about it.’
‘Well you should ask. Mum, where the fuck’s Dad? He’s been a long time down the corner shop, hasn’t he?’
‘Er, yeah,’ she laughed. ‘I do try.’
‘Give me her number,’ he said decidedly, reaching for his phone. ’I’ll get to the bottom of it.’
‘No way! Besides, God knows what you mean by get to the bottom of it.’
‘Bottoms on the brain still. Is your mum anything like you?’
‘Nothing like me.’
‘I’ll have her then.’
‘Well, she is single again! Her latest boyfriend finished with her, and then—’
‘As finished as those sheets I gave you, Natterer Molova?’
‘Oh, yes.’ She hastened to standing, bringing the sheets toward him, and whilst he was still staring into his screen, pushed them toward his hand.
‘Christ!’ he flinched. ‘First you act like my hand’s a hot stove and now you try paper cut me—’
‘Oh, sorry!—’
‘Ah!’ His eyes widened upon lifting the first sheet as though it were a lady’s dress. ‘Well these are exactly the ones that stood out to me too.’ He turned another page. ‘Apart from that woman, the Cohen lookalike.’ He wrinkled his nose closer. ‘Mrs Potato Head.’
She leaned over. ‘What, the one at the bot… I mean, at the end of the page?’
He chuckled. ‘Yes. At the bottom. With a face like a bottom.’
‘Oh, I like her. Used to work in a school three times the size of this one, so managing the late-book, of mostly my entries as you say, should be a doddle. Says she enjoys mindfulness and yoga every morning so that means she won’t spew venom over anything and everything she encounters an hour later.’
‘Hmm,’ he glanced up at Natalia and down at the sheet again. ‘Not mindful enough, or rather too late, to squirt some salicylic acid on that nose wart that looks like it will spew venom three times the size of itself.’
Natalia burst out laughing. ‘You’re good!’
‘No you are. How the fuck did you know which school she comes from?’
‘Googled her name. Came up on LinkedIn. Says she used to work at Cardinal Wiseman’s. I looked it up just now and saw it’s got triple the pupils here.’
‘Lincten?’
‘Aren’t you on it?’
‘What is that, medication?’
‘Website to show off your career. You should make your own page.’
He frowned. ’When did you get your phone out?’
‘Sneakily. Like most teachers, you didn’t even notice,’ she grinned.
‘How dare you liken me to most teachers. Stand up.’
She did so, slowly.
His eyes scanned over her body, taking the liberty to look wherever he wanted for a full five seconds before muttering:
‘Where is your phone?’
‘In my pocket.’
‘What pocket?’ He scrutinised the sides of her skirt.
‘My coat pocket.’
His eyes shot to the coat over her chair. ‘Oh!’ with a bemused grin. ‘Oops.’
‘Now you’re the backwards arse,’ she muttered, sitting back down.
He exhaled slowly. ‘Did you know you have the wit of this whole county combined?’
‘Not a whit. Besides, this is a two-way conversation. Two half-wits, wittering on.’
‘Ha!’ He looked to the clock. ‘Well, we’ve whittled the time down, whittling these down. Kept you for a whole lesson that felt like five minutes. So, these four I’ll interview. Mr Tombstone Teeth…’ as he leafed through, ‘Mrs Tank Tits, Miss… er… so-so CV,’ shrugging at the last one, ‘and Mrs Potato Head, just for you.’
She smiled.
‘I should have you help me interview them really. God that would be fun,’ he stared wistfully at the paper.
‘I think that would go arse about face.’
He tossed the sheets back onto his desk and beamed at her. ‘Right! Ta very much, merci, spasibo, danke… you may now go to your next lesson, and I owe you tea, buckets of tea, and recompense for your work as secretary, recruitment assistant, seat warmer, IT consultant, most lucid entertainer, phone-clicking delinquent… and smart arse.’
‘Thanks. It was fun. And thanks for getting a new receptionist. Erm, sir, what about the lesson I missed?’
‘I’ll excuse it as always. What’s next?’
‘Physics with Allsebrook.’
‘Cerebral-palsy-Brook?’
She shook her head. ‘So bad.’
He clicked on his computer. ‘By the way, Luxton is on half a million views.’
‘Oh my god! Any comeback?’
‘Had a call earlier this week from a newspaper. Thought it was the Yorkshire Post but turns out it was some free rag called the Asian Express. They sent round a journalist, a boy no bigger than you, clutching a cranky dictaphone asking to interview Shaziya. Stuck them in Dinkey’s office for an hour - he hadn’t been DBS checked to sit alone with a child but I said it’s fine as long as the story ends up front page.’
‘My god! Fire with fire.’
‘Be stirring as the time!’ he boomed, as she looked with concern to the door. ‘Befire with fire, threaten the threatener, and outface the brow of bragging horror!’
‘Shakespeare again?’
‘King John.’
‘And where two raging fires meet… they consume the thing that feeds their fury. That’s from, er—’
‘The Taming of the Shrew,’ he nodded, impressed. ‘Very good!’
She glowed as she arose with her coat and bag to the door.
‘Surprised no-one’s knocked for an hour. Peace from pests for a rather portly time! …Don’t forget your clothes!’
‘What?’ she frowned, then scurried back to her uniform garments still on her chair. ‘Oh! Forgot all about that!’
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*
‘I’ve themed today’s lesson on chemical reactions, the fuel triangle and combustion,’ announced Mr Allsebrook. ‘The fuel triangle being oxygen, heat and fuel that are needed to make a fire. Who’s going to a Guy Fawkes’ night this weekend?’
‘Forget Guy Fawkes,’ Dean laughed. ‘I think Mrs Williams would rather make a model of Mr Neill to burn… saw her having a right go at him after Assembly!’
‘Neill Fawkes!’
‘She knows we’re gonna burn our ties.’
‘Bernard’s dad’s bringing shitloads of palettes. It’s gonna be huge! Down on the green at eight.’
Neill the rabble rouser? The first day she met him he incinerated her report card, now he was dynamite to the uniform itself, blowing up the whole place like Parliament itself, igniting ardent pupil furore like she’d never seen! Be fire with fire, be stirring as the time!
Sure enough, on page three of Saturday’s local evening paper held in the hands of her mum was the headline:
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‘SCHOOLKIDS SET THEIR UNIFORMS ABLAZE AFTER HEADMASTER BANS TIES’
‘New-age Headmaster at Thornwood High School has relaxed rules on traditional uniform leading to inferno on Wykebeck Green’
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‘That your school? What’s going on? Is that the ‘Eadmaster you say got rid of report cards?’
‘Oh, storm in a teacup. Inferno? It’s a bonfire!’ Natalia hooted. ‘New-age Headmaster! Our new Head made some changes to the uniform and a load of yobs decided to burn their ties… big deal. They’ll look stupid because they haven’t even got their new clothes yet.’
‘Mmm. At least it kept ‘em away from bombing folks’ letterflaps this time,’ Mary mused, turning the page and flicking the channel at the same time. ‘I’ll have tea please love.’
Natalia went off to the kitchen, her face falling. Was she semi-responsible for this? Would it lead to more drama, further press attention? But the thrill! ‘Ties are for businessmen,’ she’d said, and it was loved, lavished, lapped up by her New-Age Headmaster!
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