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‘We don’t know what’s in this stuff that dodgy Marcia smoked,’ as she pushed Neill’s hand away. ‘I don’t want to turn into the devil with a hard-on!’
He guffawed. ‘But I do!’
‘No way.’ She plucked and tossed it into his lap.
He hurriedly crocked his thigh to rummage for where it had rolled. ‘Christ, where is it?’ He flicked on the light, half-shielding it with his hand. ‘Great,’ he grunted, ‘now I look like I’m touching myself with a schoolgirl.’
She laughed. ‘Wouldn’t that be your ideal thing?’
‘Schoolgirls, no thanks. I’d rather bend the Old Bailey over the bonnet, she might have knackers in her knickers but at least they’re washed.’
‘Butch Bailey!’ Natalia squealed. ‘Would you eat her knicker-bollock-glory?’
They both cawed in laughter, as he straightened the joint and then sighed: ‘Look Natalia. This is not laced with anything, I know.’
‘How?’
He paused. ‘Because it’s not from Marcia. I planted it in her fag packet.’
‘Oh, my god. You plarrn-ted—’
‘Yeah, ah’ plah-nted it!’ he drolled back. ‘Alriiight? Yes? Now can we get on?’
She laughed and ducked as he re-brandished it at her mouth.
‘Listen! Marcia smokes weed, I know, because I’ve seen it, smelt it - even laughed when I once saw her bloodshot eyes from it - but it’s not my fault that on Friday when I wanted to nuke her for it, the cunt wasn’t carrying any!’
‘Oh? You mean when they were in detention with you?’
‘Yes. I held them up so I could have a good think about how I was going to do them for you. Spied their fag packets in their coat pockets as expected, but when I peeped and there was no weed, I simply acquired some at the weekend and nailed them Monday morning.’
‘Acquired some? From where?’
‘A reputable grower, Natalia.’
‘How many tattoos?’
‘His arms were as green as the pure, pukka ganja he grows in his gran’s garage.’
‘Is that a line from Wordsworth?’
‘Come forth into the light of things, let nature be your teacher,’ as he presented the now squashed looking joint on his palm.
‘Neill,’ she blinked down at it, knowing it was going the same way as the banana, ‘are you sure we’re not going to get in trouble?’
‘Nat-alia—’ he intoned, ‘everything is fine. Marcia is gone, and I’m sorry I ever let the scrote into the school. I was lucky getting a committee meeting so fast but her chequered history, along with my pulling of some strings, wool and legs, got her expulsion expedited. She’d be gone soon anyway, just saves you getting a black eye—’
‘Just a red one instead?’
‘…And this beautiful sacred leaf here,’ he drew it toward her, ‘is to thank for that. So stick it in your mouth’ - he pushed it into her lips - ‘and thank it back.’
Her smiling lips relented to take in the tip, as he commanded ‘hold it!’ and struck the lighter, her heart quaking hot behind her thick coat still buttoned up to her neck.
‘Remember to inhale deeply. Otherwise you won’t feel much.’
Compelled to do as he said, she removed it from her mouth and exhaled, looking shyly to him, as he dragged on his, facing forward through the windscreen, as though he were casually sitting at the helm of a ship steering them into the unknown, and that everything was gung-ho, just fine and dandy to be doing what they were doing.
She slipped off her coat, shuddering as the cool air hit her clammy neck. Sunset was fast shifting the trees and bushes into shapes as black as Neill’s car, as she watched the glowing end of his spliff being raised to his mouth, prompting her to lift and drag hers in faint emulation.
‘Well, cheers to Marcia,’ she said holding it aloft, as he did his, she giggling as he gave a mock-serious cock of his head.
A moment later she sighed. ‘Smells like the living room when my mum has the ropiest of her boyfriends round. I’m done,’ and handed it back to him.
‘Cunts and angels, that’s all I can say.’
‘And which are you?’
‘Bit of both,’ as he now held each joint in either hand, then put both into his mouth together.
‘I’d love to send a picture of you right now to Marcia.’
They caught each other’s eye, and both burst out laughing. A car ahead suddenly blared its headlights on.
‘Slip down. Slip down there,’ he motioned his hand to the footwell. ‘Till this car goes out.’
She was muttering nervously upon sliding back up.
‘It’s fine. Cars must stop here for a quick dogging before they head off to the M1 over there.’
‘That’s the motorway?’ she gazed at the lights of cars pinpricking like shooting stars through a distant line of trees. ‘How far does it go?’
‘All the way to London. I’ll be four hours on it come the holidays. So, how do you feel?’ he rolled his head on the headrest at her.
‘A bit… tingly. Kind of relaxed? Throat feels weird.’ She coughed.
‘Probably didn’t hit the sides,’ he chuckled, as she noticed vaguely in the dark, he was beginning to look a little glassy-eyed, with a fixed curled smile, as he stroked his steering wheel with intermittent long sighs.
’It’s all a bit new to me, Mr Neill. Hang on, what is your first name? I don’t even know?’
‘My full name’s Richard Neill.’
‘Richard. Do they call you Richie?’
He laughed softly. ‘No-one’s called me Richie since I was little.’
‘So how come you have pupils call you without the ‘Mr’?
‘Well, in truth I got the idea from an ancestor. My great-great-great uncle A.S. Neill was actually famous, for pioneering a school where kids were allowed to run riot. In the 60s they would all call him Neill and he would stroll amongst them smoking like a chimney.’
‘Sounds like Thornwood!’ she laughed.
‘Still exists. It's called Summerhill, down in Suffolk.’ He shrugged. ‘I guess Mr Neill sounds to me too much like a teacher. After being one, and being around them at work and home, I just want to be human again.’
‘At home?’
‘I was married to one. Years ago.’
‘Oh, I see,’ she said quickly.
‘I’ve actually been married twice. Both short. Both shit. Both delusional experiences. How can I make a mistake twice, eh?’
She tried to digest this new information. ‘Are you looking for redemption, a la Rochester?’
‘I’m looking for some fucking thing. A fresh career start with your school was the plan. Is the plan. I think it’s going alright. Except—’
‘Except?’
‘The more the days go on, the more I get the feeling there’s only so much one can do with a school like that. I’m looking at ordering yaki gyoza for the canteen knowing full well I may as well just double the jacket potatoes. I want to make a forest school but I have to get planning permission for so much as a blasted vegetable garden. Planning permission!’ He laughed softly, stroking the wheel again. ‘It’ll never be the ilk of a private school of course, but I wanted to put it to the top of the state tree.’
‘Which school were you at before this?’
‘Richmond upon Thames. London. Private school. I was only a Dink-Dog Deputy there.’
‘So how come you moved all the way up here?’
‘New start I guess. I had a somewhat literary romantic idea of living up North. I wanted my turn to be Head and call the shots. Heard about the post here and fancied a go whipping this school into shape.’ He continued gazing through the windscreen. ‘Neary’s uninspiring tour and handover got my motor going even more.’
‘You mean, my green report card was your green light?’
‘Oh yes, that helped. You were the only one on a report card at that point, so you fired me up’ - she laughed - ‘and it was, sort of the last straw, of all the things that day that fucked me off. Uniform, dinners, teachers… Neary seemed to think there are absolutely no need for any improvement. He was agitated I was even mentioning it.’
‘I feel like in a few short weeks you’ve pulled the school out from the doldrums of the dark ages.’
‘Oh kicking and screaming. You asked about the IT suite, well I’ve got a whole suite of Apple iMac computers arriving next week. And new canteen meals any day now.’
‘Wow, cool.’
‘Bit of a delay with the new receptionist though,’ he sighed.
‘I noticed. Such a failure,’ she tittered.
‘Shut up you. Problem is, I spent too long having a toss-up between Mrs Potato Head and Tank Tits. What would you rather see at the welcome desk, a bottom for a face or a bottom for a chest? By the time I’d chosen—’
‘Who?’
‘Tank Tits of course. But she can’t start till the New Year and serves me right for not hearing her. Sitting there staring at her bazookas I must have looked like one of those autistics who can’t make eye contact.’
‘Oh dear,’ she giggled. ‘From tits to hits - how many is Luxton on? I keep meaning to ask you for the link.’
‘About half a million. I’ll WhatsApp it to you. Got Asians all the way in Kirklees emailing me kudos, all fodder for our case if Luxton starts one. Their community is so up in arms we’ll probably be greeted with hoards of Muslims bowing from their Bradford boutiques when our coach goes to Haworth next week. Talk about the Mosque-mobile!’
Her chortle trailed into a sigh, laying back and gazing at the black sky through the sunroof. ‘Oh, I can’t wait for Haworth. I’ve been dreaming about it like some Brontë groupie.’
‘So if you love the old chick novels so much, do you think one day you will write your own?’
‘I’m already writing one,’ she said, still gazing up dreamily.
‘Oh! That’s what you’re scribbling in that notepad? Not drawing cock but writing about it?’
‘Doing neither, thank you.’
‘Don’t you have a laptop?’
‘Nope. I also happen to have Brontë-era bank balance.’
‘I’m impressed, how many girls of fifteen are writing novels?’
‘If there’s any writing them, which I’m certain there are, they are nowhere near like mine.’
‘You are delightfully self-levelling, yet simultaneously unashamedly ambitious.’
‘There was no ambition in what I just said,’ she blinked back. ‘Ambition is the goal of something. I declared the precise knowledge of something. That my novel must certainly exceed the level of my peers.’
He laughed. ‘Confident git! Maybe the weed did hit you then. Actually my first wife was a writer too. Playwright.’
‘Did you meet her whilst teaching?’
‘Through a convention. We were married for four years. The second one, I met her in her own restaurant, actually. Married for less than two.’
‘And why were they so… short and shit? In your words.’
‘I fell for their looks. Some kind of feminine charm, and pardon my language in front of a young lady as demure as yourself’ - she smiled back cynically, as he hesitated, gazing outwards as he continued - ‘but I just wanted to have sex with them, every day. Or more like five times a day. That’s what made me marry them. And that’s where I went, well, wrong, in the long term.’
She digested the sordid detail. ‘Kids?’
‘Yeah, they were, pretty much.’
She frowned. ‘So who are you marrying next?’
‘Absolutely no-one. Wives can go jump. Anyway, enough about me, miss. How about you?’
‘Huh? I’m not interested at all in boys.’
‘Fair enough. I guess you’re only young.’
She paused. ‘No one in my school for sure. Girls in my Year talk about losing their virginity and all that. That twat Stacey actually, once asked me if I was a virgin. What’s that got to do with her?’
‘Well are you?’
She laughed. ‘It’s a strange public affair of private affairs. Private affairs of fifteen-year-old girls for god’s sake.’
‘I think you’ll find most of them are telling plain old porkies.’
‘Not that I really care anyway.’
He checked the time. ‘Right, stoner-Ma-loner, I’d better get you home.’
‘Oh, thanks, I appreciate that.’
‘Well I’m not going to leave you in Tremble Nuisance or whatever this place is called,’ as he turned on the engine.
‘Tremble and Nuisance? Is that me and you?’
He laughed as he wound down his seatbelt. ‘So where exactly do you live, Tremble?’
‘Don’t fucking call me that… Nuisance,’ as she wound down hers.
‘Address, Tremble, unless you really want to stay here all night, in Jim’s words?’
‘On Gipton Square. Go back past the school and down York Road and turn at the fire station.’
‘I’ve seen it. I think I know,’ as he began bumping the car out over the gravel.
‘Warning, it’s a shit area. Best keep the car doors locked unless you want to get murdered.’
‘Goodness. Where I live is so lovely you could leave the doors of my cottage wide open and attract only a murder of crows.’
‘Oh, a cottage? Sounds lovely. Very Brontë.’
‘It’s nice but a bit small. A bit like you.’
‘Shut up,’ she laughed.
She fell back silently watching the trees and houses shuttle past as Neill sped them back out and up the dual carriageway. She glanced at his thick hands on the wheel, then to the profile of his cocky driving face, incredulous at the last hour she spent with him, which was hanging above her head somewhere and soon would shortly land for long, incredulous night-time digestion.
Natalia gasped as he braked hard at a red light, muttering at a slower car in front.
‘Bloody hell,’ she whispered. ‘I’m so not used to cars.’
‘Well you have a baptism by fire, as is the case with me in all things. Nearly in your neck of the woods. I am sorry, Natalia, but I drove you away so abruptly, and have kept you away for so long, that I neglected to ask whether your mother isn’t wondering where you are?’
‘I texted her,’ she lied, having forgotten completely. ‘She’s fine. The longer I stay away the better.’
‘Home life sounds riveting. You said you had no siblings, don’t any relations come visit?’
‘Rarely. I spend most my time in my books and in my own head, really.’
‘Goodness you sound like Matilda. Well it’s been nice having a little wander inside your head, high or not.’
‘Yours too, Richie,’ she smirked.
‘I’ll let you call me that - maybe,’ he laughed, then glanced at her as he drove. ‘So, how are you feeling honey? Do you mind if I call you honey?’
She went pink in the face with a flash of blood to her thighs, and just murmured pleasantly.
‘Shock of tonight worn off yet?’
‘Mm. I think so. Just tired now.’ She pointed to the right. ‘Short cut up that street.’
He turned in, jostling the car fast over speed bumps as the suspension bumped wildly.
‘Fuck me, why so many sleeping policemen? It’s like a fucking desert safari!’
‘Erm, I think they’re for drivers like you,’ as she clung onto the door handle. ‘You can turn here back out onto a main road—’
He grunted in acknowledgment, as they approached a junction leading into a line of slow moving traffic. Pushing his bonnet straight out into the queue to turn right, he growled as the car he expected to let him out, trundled on by, cutting him off.
‘Fucking shitty little Daewoo! In the literal colour of vomit!’ He edged right up to the offending hatchback, his lights beaming into its back window like a looming spaceship.
‘Steady on,’ Natalia laughed. ‘It’s already got a huge dent in the back.’
‘Almost as bad as Mrs Cheng’s. Wait…’
‘The new RE teacher? The one who lives in Gipton?’
‘Shit,’ he stared closer. ‘That’s her.’
‘Oh, god! Did she see us when you pulled out?’
‘Not likely,’ as the queue moved steadily toward the traffic light. ‘Besides, after two joints I look as Chinese as her.’
‘Now that is Luxton level racist.’
‘So-sue-me. Besides, the Chinese are the worst for racism,’ as he nodded at Cheng’s car. ‘Should have seen her face when I suggested bringing in a black pastor from the Roscoe Methodist Church for Year 9’s Community Day. Looked like a cat sniffing orange peel.’
‘Well just drop me off here, before the junction. My street’s only over there,’ as she pulled her coat back on.
‘Very well.’ He signalled and pulled the tyres up onto the kerb, the cars behind him passed by and Cheng’s car disappeared from view, to Natalia’s relief.
‘Goodnight, now the bullies can’t bite,’ as he picked up the fag packet, ‘you want to take another of Marcia’s cigarettes to practise on?’
‘Not sure that’s a good idea,’ she smiled, then added, ‘I might share one with you again though.’
‘But that means you’ll have to come ride in my car again.’
She laughed softly as she reached for the handle.
‘Well thanks for the lift, Richie…’
‘You know you can’t call me that at school.’
‘So I’ll have to come ride in your car again.’
‘Naturally. Wait, have you returned your permission thing and money for the trip on Monday?’
‘Oh, no,’ she turned to reply. ‘I was building up to asking my mum to part with a tenner and be sober enough to sign the form.’
‘Good heavens. I’ll sort it.’
She leaned her head back in. ‘What, the money?’
‘And the permission. In fact, here, take another tenner and buy her dinner to line her boozy stomach with.’
‘No - it’s ok,’ she laughed. ‘You fixed Marcia, that’s good enough.’
‘Ok then. See you tomorrow.’
She slammed the door and walked round the back of his car, which he was already swinging boldly out into a three-point turn forcing the traffic on both sides to wait, and then, hanging in the middle of the road, his beckoning hand extended from his driver window - and she realised he was holding a path for her to cross.
‘Oh!’ She scampered over, his headlights briefly illuminating her blue coat - as she raised a momentary hand back in appreciation before he steered round to drive the other way.
73Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡlP6e1tAugP
73Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡoBHhpr9DBl
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