Fiction from The Literary Review
A Night Off
ALASDAIR GRAY
In 1986 the British government abolished physical punishment in the schools it controlled. This story is from the dark age before that happened.
1
One Friday afternoon at fifty-nine minutes and several seconds past three o'clock a no longer young, slightly plump teacher stood in an open doorway gazing at the dial of his wristwatch. He concentrated on the second hand to avoid facing a chattering queue of twelve-year-old boys who chattered and jostled each other in ways he despaired of preventing.
“Control yourselves, keep in line,” he told them, “no need for impatience. Every one stand still beside your neighbour. If you aren't standing by your neighbour when the bell rings I'll make you . . . ”
An electric bell rang and the queue charged from the room. As the boys poured past he muttered, “All right, off you go,” then closed the door behind them.
“Well McGrotty,” he said striding briskly to his desk, “this is the end of the week and no doubt you're as keen to leave as I am. Let's get rid of the painful business fast. Put out your hand.”
He took from the desk a leather belt which forked at the end like a snake's tongue. Raising it till the thongs fell behind his right shoulder he approached a small poorly dressed boy who stood with shoulders hunched close to ears, hands thrust deep in pockets of shorts.
“Hand out!” said the teacher again.
“Naw sir,” muttered McGrotty, thrusting his hands in deeper.
“Why not?”
“I was just picknup a pencil.”
The teacher sighed and said, “All right, McGrotty, since you seem in no hurry to leave we'll review your case once more. Did you hear me tell the class—the whole class—that nobody must leave their seat without first putting up their hand and asking my permission?”
“Yes sir.”
“Did I also say that whoever left their seat without permission would get three of the belt?”
“Yes sir.”
“And then you left your seat without permission. Yes or no?”
“Yes, sir.”
“So put out your hand.”
“Naw sir.”
“Why not?”
“Cos I was just picknup a pencil.”
The teacher sighed again, sat at his desk and spoke with the belt draped over his knee.
“McGrotty, I realize as well as you do that there is nothing wicked—nothing antisocial—nothing criminal in leaving a seat to pick up a dropped pencil. But we had anarchy in the classroom today. Anarchy! Pellets were fired, someone threw a book while I was getting rulers from the cupboard, whenever I turned my back somebody did something horrible to someone else. I heard you squeal loud enough. Who kicked you? You didn't have that when you came to my classroom this afternoon.” The teacher pointed to a livid bruise below McGrotty's dirty left knee cap. McGrotty glowered silently at the floor.
“Did Sludden do that?”
McGrotty said nothing.
“Did McPake?”
“I didnae do anything.”
“I am perfectly aware, McGrotty, that you are neither a troublemaker nor a bully. But I cannot protect you from troublemakers and bullies in a class where nobody sits still and nobody does what I say. That is why I announced that I would give three of the belt to the first boy who left his seat without permission. Sludden and McPake knew I meant it. Why, McGrotty, why in the name of goodness didn't you?”
“I was just picknup a . . . ”
The teacher struck a crashing blow on the desklid with the belt, sprang up and roared, “Hand out McGrotty! We've no witnesses here! If you don't take this belt on your hand you'll feel it where it lands on you!”
He advanced wielding the belt over his head. McGrotty backed into a corner, shut his eyes tight and stuck a hand supported by the other hand as far out as possible. His face, screwed into agonized expectation of worse agony, upset the teacher who paused and pleaded, “Be a man, McGrotty!”
McGrotty stood still with outstretched hands and tears sliding down his cheeks. The teacher flung the belt onto his desk and sat down holding his head as if it ached.
He said wearily, “Go away. Leave me alone. For God's sake leave me alone, McGrotty.”
Though not looking straight at the boy the teacher knew what happened next. McGrotty lowered hands, wiped cheeks with jacket sleeve, walked to the door. McGrotty opened it, stepped out, hesitated, yelled, “Ye big fat stupit wet plaster ye!” slammed the door and ran away. The teacher had no wish to run after him. His depression was not much deepened by McGrotty's parting words. He thought, “I could have belted him if I'd wanted to. He knows it and that's why he's mad at me.” A minute later the teacher got up, locked the classroom cupboards, locked the classroom door behind him, followed McGrotty downstairs and gave the keys to the headmaster's secretary.
2
He was not the last teacher to leave school that Friday. At the playground gate a small three-wheeled vehicle propelled by a rear engine overtook him. This braked and the driver asked if he wanted a lift into town. He did and climbed in beside a grey-haired woman with a leg in a metal brace. She said, “You're usually away a lot earlier.”
“Yes, I had someone to sort out. One-B-nine got out of hand and I had to keep the ringleader behind for extra discipline—three of the best—wham wham wham. I think he got the message.”
“Was it Sludden?”
“No.”
“McPake?”
“No.”
“Who was it?”
“McGrotty.”
“I've always found McGrotty a poor spiritless creature. It's Sludden and McPake I keep my eye on in one-B-nine.”
“They never bother me.”
“Which shows you can't generalize about children from one class to the next. You live in town?”
“No, out Carntyne way.”
“Meeting your wife in town?”
“No, Friday is my night off.”
“Your night off what?”
He frowned because her terse questions made him feel uncomfortably childish. At last he said, “Have you noticed how almost everything we do becomes a habit?”
“It's inevitable at our age.”
“It may be inevitable but it worries me. I can stand it at work—teaching would be impossible without routines—but surely private life should be different? Yet on Sunday we have the usual long lie, late breakfast and afternoon stroll in the park. On Monday or Tuesday I change my library book, on Wednesday or Thursday a babysitter comes and we go out to a film or visit friends. And when we visit friends our conversations are much the same as last time. Never any new ideas. Never any new . . . behaviour. So on Fridays I have a night off. I go into town and let the unexpected happen.”
“Does your wife take nights off?”
“She doesn't want them. Our son isn't quite two yet. But she doesn't mind me enjoying some freedom. She knows I won't get drunk, or waste money, or do anything stupid. My wife,” said the teacher as if making a puzzling discovery, “is a very intelligent woman.”
“It would seem so. Where will I drop you?”
“Anywhere near Sauchiehall Street. I'm going to the Delta tearoom.”
“I can easily drop you there. Several of our staff usually meet there after school don't they? Don't Jean and Tom Forbes?”
“Yes,” said the teacher defensively, “but others go there too—art students, and people who work in television and . . . journalists and . . . unconventional people like that. Interesting people.”
“Then it's very wise of you to go there too.”
He looked at her suspiciously. She said, “On your night off, I mean. I was an art student once. I felt wonderfully interesting in those days.”
3
In the Delta tearoom three of his colleagues sat round a table in silence punctuated by occasional remarks. They had talked hard to children all day so were partly resting their voices, partly easing them back into adult conversation. As the teacher approached he heard a bearded man called Plenderleith say, “and he never starts anything.”
“Mhm,” said Jean, a young woman who was pleasantly vivacious most of the day but not at quarter to five on Friday afternoons. Nearby her husband Tom swiftly, steadily corrected a stack of exercise books, underlining words, scribbling marginal comments and marks out of twenty. The teacher ordered a coffee, brooded for a while then asked Plenderleith, “Who were you talking about when I came in?”
“Jack Golspie.”
“Why did you say he never starts anything?”
“It's true. He waits until someone else suggests something then hangs about looking pathetic until he's included.”
“Mind you it isn't easy to start something, is it? When did you last do it?”
“I don't remember. I don't care. I was just telling Jean why Jack Golspie bored me.”
A waitress brought coffee. The teacher drank most of it before saying gloomily, “He bores me too.”
Tom Forbes marked his last essay, put the exercise books in a briefcase and sat back with a sigh of relief. “It beats me how you can do that first thing after school on Friday,” said the teacher on his gloomy note. “Last thing on Sunday evening is as soon as I can manage.”
“From now onward no memory of schoolwork will disturb the evening's joy,” said Tom, yawning slightly.
“It's our wedding anniversary,” Jean explained.
“Congratulations!” said the teacher, truly pleased. “The first?”
“The first.”
“Splendid. How will you celebrate?”
“A dinner for two in the Rogano first,” said Tom, “then a party.”
“Definitely a party,” said Jean. The teacher looked hopefully from one to the other but they were exchanging smiles in a way which excluded him. He lapsed into mild depression again.
Suddenly Plenderleith muttered, “Hell.”
They looked at him.
“Tony McCrimmon,” he added.
“Has he seen us?” asked Jean looking down at her cup.
“No doubt of it,” said Plenderleith grimly. “Here he comes, flaunting his regalia.”
The teacher saw a big black-moustached man with close-cropped hair approach. His bulk was emphasized by a thick overcoat with square shoulders from which shiny camera cases hung on straps.
“Hullo hullo hullo! Still here in the customary corner?” he said, sitting with them. “I was passing the old Delta tearoom and thought, five o'clock on Friday! Why not drop in and see if the old gang are in the customary corner? So in I come and here you are.”
“That's nice of you, Tony,” said Jean gently.
“I think I know you. Or do I?” McCrimmon asked the teacher who found the question confusing.
“You don't,” Tom told McCrimmon jovially. “You went to London months before he joined us. But he's bound to know you. Who hasn't heard the name of Tony McCrimmon?”
The teacher, embarrassed, said, “Yes, I'm sure I've heard it but I can't exactly remember where or why.”
“Ahaw! Such is fame. I'm better known in Fleet Street and Soho than I'll ever be in my native land. Waitress, a coffee! Very hot, very black, very strong.”
“You're a journalist?” asked the teacher, interested.
“You're getting warm, son. Yes, I wield the old plume from time to time but my forte is the pictorial genre. You may have seen something of mine in the Sunday Times colour supplement a wee while ago: Britain's Forgotten Royalty. My work.”
“All of it, Tony?” Jean softly asked.
“The pictures. The idea was mine too but the writer got the credit for it. That sort of thing happens all the time. I'm used to it.”
“What brings you north of Soho?” asked Plenderleith.
“Exhaustion, Plendy-boy, sheer exhaustion. I can work myself into the ground like a pig when the mood is on me but periodically I've got to stop. I throw up whatever I'm in the middle of and go somewhere quiet and . . . just let my mind go totally blank. Like the yogis. A bit of Eastern mysticism is a great antidote to the commercial rat race. Willie Maugham taught me that. Ever read him?”
Again McCrimmon was looking at the teacher who replied that his field was maths and he hadn't much time for reading nowadays.
“So you're back in Glasgow for the Eastern mysticism?” said Plenderleith drily.
“I know what you people think of me,” McCrimmon said in a voice so quietly sincere that the three who knew him glanced uneasily at each other but relaxed when he said, “You think I'm a cynic. You think I'm a cynic because I'm dynamic and who ever heard of a dynamo with a heart? Well, this dynamo has a heart.” (He clapped a hand to his chest.) “No matter how far I travel I'll always return to auld Scotia. A man needs roots. But,” he concluded, becoming less solemn and turning to the teacher again, “you ought to read Maugham. He was a great writer but a greater human being. I got on well with him, before the end.”
“You knew him?” said the teacher.
“Where's that coffee of mine?” said McCrimmon looking round. “I keep forgetting how rotten the service is here. Yes, I knew old Willie Maugham. Beaverbrook introduced us.”
The photographer concentrated on the teacher with the instinct of a performer finding an audience. The quiet departure of Jean, Tom and Plenderleith was hardly noticed by the two who remained—one spouting fluent monologues, the other inciting them with exclamations and questions.
4
Four coffees later McCrimmon said, “And that is the true story of my last and worst encounter with Beaverbrook.”
The teacher was excited and appalled. He had suspected great press barons were greedy, selfish and unscrupulous, but had not thought them petty, vindictive and superstitious.
“Amazing—really amazing,” he murmured, “but I think the lassie wants us to leave.”
The room was empty but for them and a bored waitress lounging near the till.
“Forget her—she kept me waiting for my coffee. I'm surprised that you haven't asked why I'm back in Scotland.”
“You told us you were here to relax and meditate.”
“Did I? So I did. I wasn't being strictly accurate. There are better places to relax than smoky old Glasgow. No laddie. I'm here with a purpose.”
McCrimmon pressed his lips together and nodded heavily.
“If you'd rather not tell me—” said the teacher after a silence.
“Know something? I like you. There's not many I would waste my sweetness on but I think you're what I would call trustworthy. Notice how many new buildings are going up nowadays?”
“Yes.”
“And a lot more are going to go up which means even more old stuff will be hammered down. It's inevitable. All progress is inevitable. But when these filthy old tenements and warehouses and cinemas are replaced by motorways and multistorey flats and shopping centres folk are going to miss them, hence this little toy.” (McCrimmon tapped a camera case with his finger.) “I paid two hundred quid down for it and it'll make my fortune. I will emerge as the Recording Angel of Glasgow's recent past.”
“You won't believe this,” said the teacher excitedly, “but I've thought of doing that!”
McCrimmon seemed not to believe it or found it a negligible idea in others. He said, “I'll show more than the buildings of course, I'll show the people. We don't just have smooth characterless buildings going up, we've smooth characterless people taking over. Like the three who've just left.”
The teacher could not help showing surprise because he liked the three who had just left and did not think them very different from himself. McCrimmon said quickly, “Don't get me wrong—they're nice enough folk but speaking as an artist you cannae beat the hard dour folk formed by the First World War, the General Strike, the Thirties' Depression and the single-room flat—the faces of folk who took abject poverty for granted. Closet-on-the-stair faces. Jawbox-with-one-brass-swan-neck-cold-water-tap faces. Black-leaded-kitchen-range-with-polished-steel-trim faces. There aren't many left.”
“A lot of folk still live like that,” said the teacher with a faint smile.
“I wish I knew where. All the single-end flats I've seen this week had a tiled fireplace and modern sink unit with gas water-heater. What's wrong with you?” he asked, for the teacher, gripped by a strong idea, stared at him like an equal and said, “Are you free just now Tony? Because if you are I can take you to exactly the place you want—recess bed, jawbox, polished fire range, wally dugs, the lot.”
“Who does it belong to?”
“My granny and grampa—my father's folk.”
“What sort of faces have they?”
“Good faces. Kind faces. Lots of character in them.”
“Wrinkles?”
“They're in their eighties. They live overby in the Cow caddens. I'd love a record of them. I'd pay you for it.”
McCrimmon stood up and slung his cases round him saying, “I suppose they may have some sociological value. Let's go.”
McCrimmon held aloof while the teacher paid for the coffees but walked beside him up Sauchiehall Street and over Rose Street in the dusk of an autumn evening. The teacher explained he must first buy some presents as he had not visited his grandparents for over a year. “Coloured beads to keep the natives happy, eh?” said McCrimmon. The teacher did not answer. He supposed that McCrimmon's talent had destroyed normal sympathies by raising him into a bad-mannered class which must be tolerated because it knows no better.
5
They crossed New City Road into a district which two years before had been lively with people and bright with small shops. An advancing motorway now threatened it with demolition so nothing was being replaced or repaired and people with plans for the future had moved out. Pavements were cracked, road surfaces potholed, some tenements obviously derelict. Not every shop was boarded up. In a small general store the teacher bought bread, butter, jam, cheese, eggs, potatoes, tinned corned beef, sardines, beans and stewed pears. The Pakistani owner put all this in a cardboard box which the teacher hoisted upon his shoulder.
He led McCrimmon into a gaslit close and up narrow stairs with the door of a communal lavatory on each half landing. On the third landing he tapped a door with signs of former working-class dignity: a shiningly polished brass door-knob, letter-box and name-plate engraved with the name ROSS.
“Who's there?” asked an old voice from within.
“It's me, Granny—Jimmy.”
“O my boy!”
A small neat timidly smiling woman opened the door. She wore spectacles, flower-patterned wrap-round apron and old cloth slippers. She looked much older than the teacher remembered. One reason why he visited her so seldom was that she looked older every time he did so. He said, “I've brought a friend, Granny.”
“I'm sure he's welcome.”
“Hullo hullo, Mrs Ross. McCrimmon is the name but you just call me Tony.”
“Fancy that. Come in, Mr McCrimmon.”
They entered a small neat room with a recess bed in which the teacher's father's father lay perfectly still on his back. A wedge of pillows propped him at a straight angle from waist to head. His eyes were shut, mouth slightly open, spectacles pushed onto brow, hands folded on book on coverlet over stomach.
“How's Grampa?” the teacher murmured placing the box on a sideboard.
“O don't ask me,” she sighed, “I've given up worrying about him. Just be a bit quiet and we'll have a sip of tea without being bothered by his nonsense. Or do you want me to make you a meal?” she asked, staring at the groceries.
“No, Granny, I'm afraid we can't stay long. A cup of tea will do.”
“You're a good wee boy to play Santa Claus with your old folk.”
At the side of the range was a kettle of water which she shifted onto the fire saying, “Take off your coat and sit down, Mr McCrimmon.”
Her grandson had already done so.
“Don't worry about me, Mrs Ross,” said McCrimmon strolling to the wooden sink before the window. He stood there with his back to the room. The teacher felt dominated by his grandfather's lean, Caesar-like profile and whispered, “Is his back still bad?”
“Yes but he never speaks about it now.”
“Can't you get a doctor to him?”
“You know what he thinks about doctors. Come to the fire, Mr McCrimmon. Make yourself at home.”
“Just don't worry about me, Mrs Ross,” said McCrimmon without turning round.
The kettle simmered. Mrs Ross brewed a pot of tea asking, “How's the family?”
“Not bad. All right. You should visit us. You'd like the wee boy.”
“It's difficult getting away from here without a babysitter.”
She nodded to the bed.
“Aye. She means me,” said his grandfather opening his eyes. “She needna. I can manage without her.”
His distinct low-keyed voice seemed to fill the room. His wife gave an incredulous “Hm!” and laid on the table a plate of biscuits and tea things. Mr Ross adjusted his spectacles with careful arm movements, which left the trunk of his body perfectly still, and appeared to resume reading his library book. Mrs Ross poured tea into a mug and three cups. To the mug she added sugar, milk, a long straw, then placed it by the bed on a cabinet holding a chamberpot. The teacher and his grandmother sat at the table drinking tea as McCrimmon, ignoring another invitation to join them, examined something in his hand.
Abruptly Mr Ross said, “How's the teaching going?”
“On,” said the teacher. “And on. And on.”
“Aye! It's secure.”
“Secure, yes. Only a sex crime will get me out of it now.”
“And well paid, compared with what most manual workers earn. And worthwhile. Children's minds need feeding as much as their bodies. A conscientious teacher has every right to respect himself.”
“I would if I was any good at it.”
“If you are bad at it only two explanations are possible: you have not yet learned how to do it properly or you are teaching the wrong thing. What is your pal playing at?”
“This is a light meter, Mr Ross,” said McCrimmon watching the instrument in his hand. The teacher said hurriedly, “Tony's a famous photographer, Grampa—”
“Does he meter light from force of habit?”
“Your grandson invited me because I am making a pictorial social survey, Mr Ross, a record of the life of Glasgow. And by life I mean more than the shape of the buildings. I want the world to know how decent, hardworking people live in Glasgow anno Domini nineteen sixty-five. I doubt I'll ever find a more decent working-class home than this.”
“You cannae photograph in here, Mr McCrimmon!” cried Mrs Ross. “The place is like a midden and I'm no dressed right.”
“Your place is as neat as a new pin, Mrs Ross and so are you.”
“I havenae dusted since this morning!”
“I see no dust and what I don't see my camera won't show.”
“Don't let him do it, John!” the woman begged her husband who said as if to himself, “A pictorial social survey. What good will it do?”
“Have you heard of Matthew Brady, Mr Ross?”
“No.”
“Have you heard of the Depression and the American dust bowl and the New Deal?”
“Aye.”
“Well, President Roosevelt was persuaded to set up the New Deal by Matthew Brady's photographs of how decent, honest American working-class families had to live in the American dust bowl. Now, I don't claim to be another Matthew Brady, but I believe that a photographer without a social conscience is an enemy of the human race. You know as well as I do that thousands of working people—some of them bedridden like you—live in single rooms with an outside lavatory they cannae reach because of the stairs. Not everyone in Britain knows that. Some very well-off folk prefer not to know it. Harold Wilson says he's going to improve the quality of British life but has anyone shown him what life is like in Glasgow? Harold Macmillan said the British worker has never had it so good. But is it good enough?”
After a pause Mr Ross said firmly, “It is NOT good enough.”
“Then you'll let me try to do something about it?”
After a pause Mr Ross picked up his book, appeared to read it again and muttered, “Go ahead.”
Swiftly McCrimmon unpacked his camera, clipped on a flash mechanism and snapped the still figure in the bed from several angles. Then he said, “You next, Mrs Ross.”
“No. On no,” she said firmly, “I'm not going to have a lot of total strangers staring at me. It wouldnae be right.”
“You never told me to expect anything like this,” muttered McCrimmon, scowling at the teacher. Ten minutes passed before Mrs Ross was persuaded to sit. “Don't let them make me do it, John,” she begged her husband. He said, “You might as well, Beth. The pictures won't appear in any papers sold in this area. If they're printed in a book, Glasgow libraries won't stock it. Snap her quick, McCrimmon.”
“Hector's photographed the queen, Granny!” said the teacher. “You're as important as the q