Vital Signs Read online

  She sat on the edge of the bed.

  “Peter?”

  “What?”

  “I’m sorry I was bitchy.”

  “That’s all right.”

  “I just felt . . . Oh, I don’t know. Just a bitchy mood. Forgive me?”

  “Yes. I said, yes.”

  “Oh, come on, Pete. Don’t be cold to me. Really, I’m sorry.”

  She stretched out on the blankets and nuzzled his ear.

  “Say you forgive me,” she whispered.

  He put his arm around her and kissed her.

  “Pete?”

  “What?”

  “I haven’t got any knickers on.”

  “You rude thing!” he said.

  “Let’s go to my room. The bed’s bigger.”

  They made love to each other in the Captain’s double bed. The bed was brass, brass rails and knobs and curlicues, arabesques of brass which rattled and jangled with their every move. Their bodies were pale in the moonlight.

  Peter pulled the sheet and blankets up over them and they lay quietly in the warm bed. Peter’s breathing slowed and deepened and his head turned on the pillow. He felt Jeanne’s hip nudging him.

  “What’s the matter?”

  “Don’t go to sleep here, Pete.”

  He grunted.

  “I don’t want Anna coming in. In the morning. Pete.”

  “All right,” he said.

  He rolled over and kissed her and then heaved himself out of the rattling bed.

  Jeanne giggled.

  “What?”

  “Your little bum. It looks lovely in the moonlight.”

  * * *

  “I’ll call you,” said Jeanne.” A couple of weeks or so.”

  “Gartree Comprehensive School,” said Peter.

  “I put Bill Arkle’s number in your wallet so you can get your suit. Don’t forget.”

  “Take care.”

  He swung the rucksack up in front of him and climbed the steps into the bus.

  “I’ll phone you,” called Jeanne.

  “Gartree Comprehensive,” he shouted.

  * * *

  The glass doors of the foyer sighed shut behind him, cutting off the surge and babble of the playground. On the wall facing him was a reproduction of some dim pastoral scene and flanking him two broad-leaved plants in wooden tubs.

  He followed the arrow which pointed to Enquiries. The woman sitting at the desk looked up at his knock and raised her eyebrows.

  “Mr. Stine’s office, please?”

  “And the nature of your business. . . ?”

  Peter handed her his letter of appointment from the Education Authority. Rimless spectacles. A frizzy perm. A white blouse secured at the throat by a spray of enamel flowers. She looked up from the letter over her glasses and said, “Welcome to Gartree Comprehensive, Mr. Hendricks.”

  “Thank you,” said Peter.

  She pointed to the name plaque on her desk.

  “I am Miss Brice. The School Secretary.”

  Peter smiled and nodded.

  “Now before you see Mr. Stine there are a couple of items. . . .”

  She opened desk drawers and folders.

  “This is your G. 34, the Ministry Form for use as a temporary register. And these are your School Dinner Numbers Returns.”

  “Thank you,” said Peter.

  “Both these are due in no later than ten-thirty this morning.”

  “Ten-thirty,” said Peter.

  “On the dot,” said Miss Brice.

  “Right,” said Peter.

  “And if I may suggest?” said Miss Brice. “That you fill in the G. 34 in pencil first and ink it in after you’ve rechecked.”

  Peter nodded.

  “Pencil first,” he said.

  She smiled at him.

  “We don’t want a lot of unsightly erasures, do we?”

  Peter nodded again.

  “You’ll notice here,” said Miss Brice, “that the children are asked to state their age in years and months as on June thirtieth of this year.”

  “Yes,” he said.

  “Many of them,” said Miss Brice, “will not do this.” She looked up at him over her spectacles and said, “It is your responsibility to check this information.”

  “I see,” said Peter. “June thirtieth this year.”

  “Now, Mr. Hendricks. I believe that Mr. Stine is free to see you, if you’d care to. . . .”

  “Yes, thank you.”

  “The second door along, on your right,” she said.

  “Thank you very much,” he said.

  He stood outside the door and glanced up and down the corridor. He straightened his tie and tried to smooth down his hair at the back. He knocked on the door just above the words: N. Stine. Headmaster.

  Nothing happened. He knocked again.

  “Come in, child!” said a voice. “Come in!”

  Mr. Stine, a toy watering can in his hand, was looking out of the window. He turned round slowly, his head back and to one side. Then he made a strange noise. It sounded like the creak of a door opening. He seemed to make it through his nose.

  “Good morning, Mr. . . . ah. . . .”

  “Hendricks,” said Peter.

  “Ah, yes. Mr. Hendricks. Of course. Good morning. As you see, I am watering my plant.”

  Peter smiled and nodded.

  Mr. Stine put the small red watering can down on the window ledge and moved to stand behind his desk. On the wall above his head hung a photograph of the 1962 Junior Football Team. He made the creaking noise again. His nose was prominent, a high ridge of bone pulling the skin white.

  “Ah . . . yes.”

  He squared a few papers on his desk and moved the calendar backwards until it was in line with his In/Out tray. Then, rearing up to his full, gaunt height, and, forcing his head even further back until he seemed to be sighting along the blade of his nose, he clasped the bands of his gown and said, “Well . . . ah . . . welcome to Gartree Comprehensive School. I hope you will be very happy here.”

  “Thank you very much,” said Peter.

  “Very happy.”

  Mr. Stine seemed to be gazing at something above Peter’s head.

  “It is, I believe, a Happy School.”

  He turned and walked across to the green filing cabinet. With his back turned, he said,

  “It is not,” and turned again to pace towards the window and the plant,

  “An Easy School. But it is,” and he stopped to gaze at the photograph of the 1962 Junior Football Team.

  “And therefore, I want you to feel free to come to me at any time.”

  The room was stuffy. Peter could feel his shirt sticking to his back. Both bars of the electric fire glowed red.

  “Thank you,” he said to Mr. Stine’s back.

  Mr. Stine seemed to be regarding his plant. The silence deepened. The papers in Peter’s hand were wilting and sticky. He tried to think of something to say. He noticed that Mr. Stine’s trousers ended six or seven inches above his ankles. On the desk was a green tin box that looked as if it contained sandwiches. The electric fire was making slight fizzing noises.

  “Discipline!” said Mr. Stine suddenly. He turned round and stared at Peter.

  “Send any Troublemakers to me.”

  Interlocking his fingers and turning his palms outwards, he cracked his knuckles.

  “Oh, yes. There are Troublemakers in this school. I know them. I know their families.”

  His eyes searched Peter’s face.

  “I have met them before and I expect to meet them again.”

  Peter nodded, unable to look away.

  Mr. Stine walked over to the window and stood looking out for a moment. Then, picking up the red watering
can, he pointed it at the filing cabinet.

  “It is all noted down,” he said. “Records are kept.”

  He walked back to his desk and placed the watering can in the centre. Then, wrapping his gown tightly about him, he lowered himself into his chair.

  “There’s really no need to stand, Mr. . . . ah. . . .”

  “Hendricks,” said Peter.

  “Do sit down.”

  “Thank you,” said Peter.

  “Ah . . . white shirts, Mr. Hendricks.”

  “Pardon?” said Peter.

  Mr. Stine made his creaking noise very loudly and started to stroke his thinning grey hair with the flat of his hand. Peter looked at the watering can. On the side was a yellow triangle. Inside the triangle were the words: Triang Toys.

  “Some people have strange ideas, Mr. Hendricks.”

  He reached inside the folds of his gown and brought out a silver propelling pencil. He held it up in front of his face and stared at it.

  “There are those who think. . . .”

  His words trailed away and he twiddled with the end of the pencil, extending and retracting the lead.

  “. . . ah . . . progressive thinkers. But it is essential that we remain at all times In Control.”

  He looked up suddenly from the end of the pencil, as if startled. The lead toppled out and broke into three pieces on his desktop.

  “Ah . . . so there you are, you see.”

  He placed the pencil on the desk beside the watering can.

  “Now, Mr. Hendricks. You’ll find the staff room along the corridor, up the stairs, and on your right.”

  “Thank you very much, Mr. Stine,” said Peter.

  Mr. Stine remained bent over the desk, staring at the broken pencil lead. Peter got up, hesitated, and went out, closing the door quietly behind him. The air in the corridor was much cooler.

  The door to Miss Brice’s office was now closed and he could hear the clacking of her typewriter. He walked along the corridor towards the stairs. Allan’s alarm clock had lost twenty minutes during the night and he’d had no time to get any breakfast. His stomach was achingly empty. He hadn’t even had time for coffee or tea.

  His back and neck were stiff from sleeping on Allan’s spring-smashed settee and his eyes felt hot and gritty. Three more weeks before he got his first pay cheque. After they had drunk beer at the Three Feathers until closing time and then eaten fish and chips at the Chinaman’s, they’d stayed up until two thirty chatting about Allan’s thesis.

  When he had got into his sleeping bag and stretched out on the settee, Allan was still padding about the littered room, unearthing still more books and pamphlets, mumbling, laughing, reading out choice pieces of Whig scurrility.

  The room was piled and stacked with books and folders. Eighteenth-century pamphlets, newspapers, prints, and broadsheets formed dumps under the window and by Allan’s bed. His table was heaped with litter except for a small writing space. Foolscap, covered in his large handwriting, lay on books which balanced on ashtrays. Old milk bottles stood on dictionaries; antiquarian book dealers’ catalogues covered bits of rock-hard sandwiches and mould-filled coffee cups; notes and references clung to sticky teaspoons.

  The floorboards creaking, Allan’s voice, the eventual thud of his shoes on the floor. Peter did not remember the light going out.

  There was a strong smell of wax polish in the corridor. Another reproduction of a pastoral scene. Sheep. A lady in a straw hat. A clock on the wall by the stairs said eight thirty. He turned to the right at the top of the stairs and went into the staff room. A few people glanced at him and then turned back to their conversations. There were no empty chairs. He stood against the wall holding the official form Miss Brice had given him to use as a temporary register.

  . . . not a bad lad, but he can’t concentrate. Just like his sister . . . so I wasn’t going to stand for that sort of insolence, so I said . . . lovely handwriting.

  On the opposite wall was a letter rack. Peter wandered across and looked at the names under the pigeon holes to see if his was there. Most of the holes were empty. From one hung a stiff football sock. His name was not there.

  Near him, a large man in a blue suit and a maroon tie was talking to a nervous-looking man in a black suit.

  You know the turning for the bypass!

  Yes.

  Don’t take it. You need the left turn before.

  Where is that!

  You know Needler’s? The chocolate factory?

  Needler’s, yes.

  Well, you don’t go quite that far. You box clever, you see, and miss the lights.

  On a table under the window stood a large copper urn. Some of the teachers were drawing cups of tea from it but Peter couldn’t see where the cups were coming from. They seemed to bring the cups with them.

  On the counter below the letter rack was a heap of papers and books—publishers’ catalogues, old exam papers, under them a collapsed rugby football, a few grimy playing cards, and three textbooks, spines ripped off and covers ink-stained. Peter picked up one of the texts, a first-year Latin grammar. It opened at an illustration of a Roman orator. In a balloon from his mouth were the words, “What do you think of that?” and emerging from the centre of his toga, a large drooping penis.

  A tall young man, a college scarf draped round his neck, came into the room letting out a rebel yell.

  Hey, it’s Bunny! shouted another voice. Ready for battle, boyo?

  Raring to go! bawled the man. Just wheel the little buggers in.

  More and more teachers were crowding into the room. Peter looked at the notice board which was empty except for a piece of paper which said: Tea Money. Still Unpaid—Mr. B. Williams, Miss C. “Curves” Jones, Mrs. C. Bagshaw.

  A young man with ginger hair came up to him and said, “Good morning. Are you a new boy?”

  “Yes, that’s right. Peter Hendricks.”

  “Tony Rogers. PE and junior history.”

  “I’m going to be teaching English,” said Peter.

  “You’re welcome to that. Too much marking for my taste.”

  “I wonder,” said Peter, “if it’s possible to get a cup of tea?”

  “Surely. I’ll see if I can pinch a mug for you . . . Be right back.”

  Peter watched his ginger hair moving through the crowd towards the cloakroom.

  Wait a minute said the nervous man. So now you’re going along Canal Street?

  Right! said the man with the maroon tie. Now on the corner there’s the Odeon cinema? With me?

  “Here you are,” said the young man with ginger hair. “One mug teachers for the use of.”

  “Thanks very much,” said Peter.

  They moved through the crowd to stand in the line behind the urn.

  “Have you met your head of department yet? Jim Curtis?”

  “No, not yet.”

  The tea was black and stewed. A faint slick of oil floated on the surface. He poured in a lot of milk.

  Tony Rogers peered round and then said, “No. Can’t see him. He’s a brilliant chap. Built a large-scale model of the Globe Theatre last year with the fourth forms. About twenty-feet long. Papier mâché, you know. Earned himself a lot of kudos.”

  “No,” said Peter. “The only person I’ve met so far is Mr. Stine.”

  “Oh, there’s Jim just coming in.”

  Peter looked round and saw a tall, blond man going into the cloakroom.

  “Is Mr. Stine always . . . well, sort of absent-minded?”

  “Stiny? Oh, he has a few odd—what’s the word?”

  “Eccentricities?”

  “No. You know. Mannerisms. A few odd mannerisms. Some of them complain about him—that he keeps himself to himself too much. But he’s a good egg really. After all, he is headmaster.”

  “It was just that
he seemed a little. . . .”

  “The best thing about him is that he’ll always back you up if you have discipline problems. He’ll bring the cane in and sort a whole class out.”

  The young man glanced at his watch.

  “Well, I’ll see you around,” he said. “I’ve got to boot some kids out of the gym before assembly.”

  “Thanks for the mug,” said Peter.

  Painted on the side of the mug was the name Owen Thomas. Peter sipped the tea and looked down into the playground.

  A girl was back-combing another’s hair. Two boys just outside the gate were straddling the crossbars of their bikes and passing a cigarette between them. A huddle of small girls were reading a comic. Some of the older boys were snatching caps from the heads of new first-formers and chucking them over the railings into the road. A football game surged up and down the asphalt. Each side seemed to have about thirty players. When they barged too close to the matronly girls in the fourth and fifth forms, the girls beat at them with their wicker baskets of domestic science supplies. Some younger girls were dancing to a transistor radio, absorbed, solemn. Peter watched the goalie crouching between two piles of satchels. The mob charged closer, hacking and blocking, trying to clear the green plastic football out to runners on the wings. The goalie hunched himself. His eyes following the ball as they charged nearer, he tensed down like a spring.

  His pose suddenly reminded Peter of the blue Turf cigarette cards he used to collect when he was nine or ten. Stars of Association Football. There had been one he’d never found. A complete set except for that one card. Stanley Mathews? It was the only name that came to him from the past. Now they collected cornflakes cards, bubble-gum cards.

  He remembered, too, suddenly, vividly, a story in a comic. He could smell the smell of the paper and the cheap print; feel the paper’s coarse texture in his fingers. The Hotspur? The Rover? A serial, and he’d never found out what happened; how they did it. It had been set in Canada. Engineers were going to flood a valley but they received a series of fatal telephone calls. When they answered the phone, they suddenly dropped dead, their faces contorted in agony. He could even see the illustrations; a man with a safety helmet on, his eyes bulging, falling to the ground, the telephone swinging on its cord.

  He couldn’t remember why he’d stopped reading; why he hadn’t followed the serial to the end. He stared through the glass into the playground.