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That longed-for meeting warmed Natalia’s cockles all evening, humming and smiling that ‘Luxton was done. Be happy.’ Oh, she will, she is! All the other teachers are quaking in their boots - fearing that unmarried, unexpurgated cookie monster she’d sat with like a chum almost all lunchtime! For after trying to imagine what his home, wife or girlfriend might be like, noticing his lack of wedding ring but never daring to ask, it turns out he was all home alone!
Not that it mattered really, but it meant no family to envy; her own house right now, blaring with the clarinet and trumpet of Corrie and a man called Rob shouting for a kebab down the phone was probably livelier than his.
She’d even been in a good enough mood to help scapegrace Stacey in Food Tech that afternoon, after all, some twats are twattier than others, and her heroine Jane Eyre always held an olive branch to the worst of them. Completely recalculating a cake recipe for Stacey when Clayton was out of the room, ‘yer so brainy,’ Stacey croaked when she’d done. ‘Ta, Nuhtalia.’
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She’d laughed off Neill’s offer of coming for Open Day tomorrow, and now she groaned she’d turned down an opportunity to cross paths - on a weekend - right before the long blank week of half term that lay ahead. But what would she say? Stand awkwardly, waiting for a wink whilst he extols Miss Barnes’ twice-weekly buttocks to the new parents? Watch for that weird silent language from him more deafening than his shouts and laughs, that made her blood slosh from one end of her body to the other as if she were a bottle tilted left and right in his hands?
She was exhausted from so much sloshing and needed to sit and reflect in disbelief on how he’d drawled, ‘from melancholy to pretty Polly,’ his eyes running over her face like a red pen over an exercise book. Natalia Ma-loner! He’d even used that same jibe that had irked her for years. Yet when he said it, she’d smiled like a prick of sunlight on a grey October morning! Was he just being nice to the loner girl?
‘Clocks go back tonight. Extra hour in bed.’
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*
Out browsing charity shops that half-term week, Natalia’s eyes fell on a yoga book, and an hour that evening that she’d have otherwise spent writing angst in her journal at how dark it was now at 3pm or watching Big Brother with her mum, was spent wrangling with poses on her bedroom floor. Four years was better late than never, she laughed to herself, to do homework on her least favourite subject of all. She could even impress lovely Miss Barnes, who lovely Neill brought in, as her vote of support for the lovely things he was doing for the school she’d always loathed.
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By the time Monday came, Natalia was disappointed to realise it was an Inset Day. She’d never normally lament a day off school. Her mum had to check her planner to believe her, frowning when Natalia said she’s looking forward to going back.
‘You’re havin’ me on! Guess it’s cos you’re leaving soon. I’m off to the post office about me income support. Make yourself a sandwich.’
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*
Tuesday it was raining, which normally made for a grim morning journey to school, but Natalia was buffered with a spring in her step. Sure enough, the new girl whom Neill had mentioned, appeared at the front of form.
‘Class!’ Williams called, ‘please welcome Marcia,’ as they gazed on a girl of mixed origin, hair scraped tightly back, pugnacious eyes roaming across the rows.
‘Marcia, please take a seat next to Natalia.’
Marcia took one look at Natalia, made a noise in her throat that sounded like ‘vohhm’ - smirked and slid down next to Stacey whose face had seized with that hysterical, silent giggle of hers. The boys chuckled as they watched the mutiny that Williams had missed, purposefully or not, as she sat peering at something in her reading glasses.
‘She’s the spoff!’ Now hissed Stacey to Marcia, as Marcia turned to give Natalia another of those delightful ‘vom’ sounds. Goodness, she wasn’t sure if she had an olive branch long enough for this kind of discrimination. Marcia continued to stare, with a face like thunder, as she squirmed awkwardly. Fuck, this clear spawning of a poisonous duo turning its attention toward the quietest and most studious in the class was right on cue for Hallowe’en. Bugger Jane Eyre’s Christian virtues, this Nuh-talia wanted to nut traitor Stacey and her new vomcom co-star right there and then.
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She practically fled to her first lesson. The English room was in noisy chaos as Mrs Coleman hadn’t turned up. Natalia sat at the front with Laura, repeatedly brandishing her new watch at which Natalia stared unimpressed, glancing at the time on it, and then round at the class, sighing to herself that she should have stayed in bed like Coleman.
Just then, the door burst open and Natalia’s heart practically backflipped. It was Neill, flustering in with his short trail of blonde hair flying out behind him, wearing a cream linen suit and brown tie, all fresh and dapper as he adjusted his glinting wristwatch.
‘Right!’ he shouted. ‘Settle down, right now, if you please!’
He stood dead-centre, arms planted down claiming the front desk, presiding his eyes over the room as he scanned it, and stopping briefly on Natalia - along with her breath - as she felt her face pinken. His eyes resumed roaming, around and below him, and Natalia could guess what he wanted.
‘In there!’ she motioned with her hand toward the lower cabinet. ‘In there, Neill—’ she said louder - as he turned to register her instruction - bent over his suited bottom to open the cupboard, turned and mimed an emphatic ‘thank you!’ with two thumbs up.
She gave a polite smile back.
With the class still in noisy chit-chat, he banged down the tower of workbooks and hollered again:
‘Settle down! Hush!’
Still noisy.
‘SHUT UP!’
The room quietened down dead, with a few giggles.
‘Alana!’ he barked. ‘Is that a magazine?’
‘Yeah, sir, sorry—’
‘Hand it over please.’
With a scrape of chair legs, Alana got up and passed the copy of Vogue.
‘Wait there.’
Alana stood surprised, as Neill flicked through and squinted on a page that caught his attention. He held out the magazine so everyone could see an ‘Obsession’ perfume advert modelled by Kate Moss, curled up naked all for her knickers, looking up doe-eyed from spotless white bedsheets.
‘Tear out this page for me and you can have the magazine back. Deal?’
The classroom burst out laughing.
‘Er, deal!’ Alana snorted, ripping out the page, placing it on the desk and walking back to her incredulous friends.
Neill rapped on the table. ‘Right,’ he began, half-gazing down at the magazine picture, ‘Kate M—, I mean, Kate Coleman, hasn’t made it in today. Illness, traffic, or going to fetch her Hallowe’en costume, I couldn’t hear the excuse over the phone very well.’
A chuckle murmured over the room.
‘So I’m afraid that today you have me. English is, after all, my first language - and you all already know it, so this lesson is going to be a piece of pis...tachio cake, right?’
The class guffawed. He had their attention now.
‘Right. Let’s give out these books,’ he centred the pile in his hands. ‘I don’t know half your names, so I’ll just call them out and slap them down on the desk, see?’
He took the first.
‘Ah, Alana Reynolds.’ It hit the desk with a clap as Alana’s chair legs scraped back again.
‘Dean Withers.’ Slap. ‘Rachel…’ he screwed his face at the writing, ‘Evenson? Everson?’
‘Everson,’ was the confirmation heard - with some titters - followed by the slap and scrape through ten more names, then Neill paused. He didn’t read the name out, but moved toward Natalia, and without looking at her - placed her book - without a slap, in front of her.
The rest of the class didn’t seem to bat an eyelid as their talking murmur began to rise again, not before Neill growled loudly:
‘Quiet!’
The last few books were given out. Fan-flapping the last book, belonging to an absent pupil, he announced:
‘So you’re all reading Jane Eyre for your exam. From what I can remember, it involves a man hiding a mad woman screaming in the attic, that his doting governess, either through naïvety or downright stupidity, blatantly ignores, correct?’
There were a couple of giggles, as he flipped open the book.
‘So where were we last working?’
There was silence. Natalia looked round, then cleared her throat.
‘Page 19 of the workbook, Neill. It’s about themes in the novel.’
Neill looked right at Natalia.
‘Thank you. And would you, Natalia, care to start us off with some of those themes?’
With these words he turned to roll down the whiteboard, uncap a pen and point it toward her. Her heart sank as she arose.
Neill leant a husky whisper toward Natalia’s passing right ear. ‘Two or three themes to start us off with, yes?’
A momentary kiss of fag scent dissipating from her cheek, she put the nib to the board and began writing.
Love. Family. Social Class. Gender.
‘Good, ok, we have a few here,’ she heard from behind her, but she continued writing:
Religion. The Supernatural. Trauma. Deception. Marriage. Poverty. Freedom. Feminism.
She heard the catch of Neill’s breath and a low wheeze as he watched. Half of the class was paying attention and half were simply taking the opportunity to chit-chat.
She churned out eight more themes till the board was nearly full, then turned to Neill who was wide-eyed.
‘Bloody hell. There’s ones here I hadn’t even thought of. Although it was many moons ago I read it.’
He pursed his lips, stepped toward her and looking down at her through unblinking cool blue eyes, so close she could feel his breath mingled sweetly with his own cologney-scent, uttered right upon her nose:
‘That’s quite enough young lady, you’re showing me up.’
She handed back the pen and sat down.
‘It looks like Natalia has, well, blown it out of the water with more themes to shake a stick at.’ Then he addressed the class louder. ‘I’d like each of you to pick three of these themes and write a couple of sentences about them. You have ten minutes! Natalia, you have three,’ he winked.
She flickered a modest smile back. He sat down, thrust out his wrist to look at his watch, then reached to pull out some paperwork from his bag.
His eyes darted to her. He’d caught her staring. A vague frown of prompting flashed over his eyebrows as she took up her pen hurriedly.
They worked in silence for five minutes.
‘Right, I’d like to hear something from someone. Ah yes, Natalia, where did you get to? Pick and talk about a theme, please.’
The room was dead silent. A few nearby pupils turned to gawk.
She cleared her throat. ‘A theme that stands out most for me is redemption. I didn’t actually write it on the board—’
He strained at the waist to squint round at the board. ‘Good heavens girl, you have more?’
‘Yes, Neill, I overlooked that one. Redemption is key because Rochester looks for it in Jane. And the other characters look for it in Jane. But Jane looks for it in no-one. She looks for it in her own actions, the forgiveness she gives others, and ultimately in life.’
His eyes roamed around the room. ‘And remind me, Rochester is looking for redemption on account of his mad wife in the attic, correct?’
‘Yes, although technically because he doesn’t even tell Jane about Bertha till a long way into the book, it’s his entire life transgressions he is looking for redemption from. Early on he makes it evident to Jane that he sees an innocence in her, an ability in her to re-invigorate him, though he would help if he didn’t go on to maintain the world’s biggest lie to her for the bulk of the book.’
He chuckled, with a couple of resounding titters from those paying attention.
‘Good, very good. Very… astute observations,’ he added, looking up at Natalia and their eyes catching for that one second more than they should. ‘And tell me, Natalia, do you have a favourite quote from the book?’
‘I think… ‘there was the glance of a curious sort of bird through the close-set bars of a cage: a vivid, restless resolute captive... were it free, it would soar cloud-high.’’
She was not looking at the book, his surprised glance down at her table confirmed.
‘And why?’
‘I guess it’s a case of relating fervently to what you read.’
He seemed deep in thought for a moment as his mouth fell open. ‘And Natalia’ - looking back on her - she blinking now bemused as though he was going to continue asking her, and only her, twenty questions right till the end of the class:
‘On point for Hallowe’en, what for you is the scariest part of this Gothic Novel?’
‘Probably the audacity with which cocky Sinjon expects Jane Eyre to marry him.’
Her promptness alone made him chortle, then gave an equally abrupt rap on the table to the class:
‘Quiet! Next person - er, Ashley.’
There continued fifteen minutes or so of themes followed by a mundane description from three more pupils; Neill replying with ‘yep, yes, yes,’ to most of them, but nevertheless giving them all his attention, and thanking each pupil with grace.
‘In the ten minutes left, take your themes and add to each a scene from the book that most portrays it. Then you can continue that for homework, which I’ll let Coleman know about, if she ever returns.’
The class tittered and then fell silent again.
Once the bell went and the chorus of scraping chair legs began, Neill jumped up, stuffing away his paperwork into his satchel.
‘Well done everyone, you survived my English class, now you can all very well bugger off!’
There were laughs from the girls and whoops from the boys, as bags were hoisted and coats flapped and the bottleneck of exiting pupils moved out through the door for break. A couple of pupils had stopped near the front desk to speak to Neill, and Natalia began to move out from her desk to pass them, but she saw that Neill’s stocky body had suddenly become positioned in her exit route between two desks leading out to the front.
She was just turning to go the other way, when she felt with sudden surprise, a large warm hand encircle and grip her wrist, then lever it to usher her round through the desks by the arm. She turned in surprise at Neill, standing by her, still talking to the pupil next to him… not looking at her, just holding her in place - still by her wrist - right beside him.
The thought that first flashed in her mind was, was he helping her get out from amongst the chaos? But for the increasing number of seconds they stood, the more she knew this wasn’t true, and felt her face begin to pinken.
‘Sir? Er, Neill?’
He didn’t answer, but kept hold of her wrist, engaged with the pupils in the space around the desk, she now crammed in with them.
Ok, this was silly. She began gently trying to pull away. But to her astonishment, he gripped tighter.
What on earth was Neill playing at now?
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