Читать книгу Worlds Apart - Ber Carroll - Страница 5

Dublin, February 2010

Erin gazed at the narrow, jagged lines streaked across the window panes. The rain had ice in it. All day it had been coming in short, bitter bursts, whipping sideways against the glass. It felt reassuring to be inside, and to imagine, rather than experience, how cold and sharp it would feel against her bare head. The room was artificially warm and bright, the oil heaters lending a slight stuffiness to the air, the electric lights overcompensating for the gloominess outside. It would be dark by the time she left school at four o’clock and, if the weather forecast was to be believed, it would be freezing by early evening.

‘Tristan Keary, stop that right now!’

‘Sorry, Miss.’

‘It’s Mademoiselle, not Miss.’

‘Sorry, Mademoiselle Donovan.’

‘Sorry? I thought we were in a French class here.’

Tristan looked blank, an expression he had practised and perfected since the day he’d started secondary school, in fact maybe since the moment he’d been born. Erin emitted a long-suffering, very teacher-like sigh.

‘Emily, please tell Tristan how to apologise en français.’

‘Pardonnez-moi.’

‘Merci, Emily. Tristan?’

‘Pardonnez-moi, Miss – I mean, Mademoiselle.’

‘Lucky for you, Tristan, that an apology somehow sounds far more genuine when it’s said in French! Now, everyone, continue with your work, please.’

Erin stared at her students until one by one they succumbed, heads swooping towards exercise books, pens twirling in thought, and silence – beautiful, rare silence – crept across the classroom and into the recesses of her head. Not pure silence, of course. Sighs, sniffs, shuffles and position-changing in chairs, rulers clattering against desks, the rain thrashing against the glass, thwarted in its attempts to get in, the sound of paper being torn – coming from Tristan’s direction? – all removed the possibility of complete quiet. Nevertheless, it was as close to silence as Erin would get in the remaining twenty minutes of this forty-minute class and it was to be enjoyed.

In these rare moments of quiet, she often paused to consider how fond she was of them, her students, and this class of third years in particular. Each of them, in their own unique way, had a special place in her heart: Emily, bright, earnest, a question always hovering on the tip of her tongue waiting to be asked – its answer, when provided, promptly analysed and catalogued for future use; Tom, awkward, selfconscious, far too serious; sweet little Aoife, always so eager to please; Darragh, accident-prone, writing clumsily with his left hand, his right in plaster after tripping over in the school yard last week, his second broken bone since Erin had known him; Aaron, looking achingly more adult than his classmates, downy hair on his upper lip, his long legs folded under the desk, towering over Erin and most of the other teachers in the school; Lisha, originally from Nigeria, who had arrived in Ireland and into this class two years ago but who remained on the outer and unsure of her place amongst these teenagers who were the same age as her but with so little else in common. Even Tristan, with all his bravado and clowning around, was special. Erin hadn’t told them yet that she was leaving, that this was her second-last week at St Patrick’s Community School. She would tell them next week. She smiled to herself as she imagined the outcry at her news.

‘But, Miss, I mean Mademoiselle, it’s the middle of the school year!’

‘And this is our Junior Cert year. The most important year of our lives!’

‘Why are you going? Is it something we did? Is it Tristan?’

‘Of course it’s not me, knuckle-head!’

‘Who will we get now? Don’t say Grouchy Gallas! Not her, please. Anyone but her!’

Erin would miss them – more than she could ever tell them. She felt guilty for leaving like this, in the middle of the academic year, the Junior Cert exams looming on the horizon. She wished that she had it in her to stay, that she could hold it together for another few months and guide them through the mock exams and then the real thing.

‘Is it your health, Mademoiselle? Is it because of your heart?’

She imagined that Aoife, trying harder than the others, would hit closest to home. Yes, it was her health, and in many ways it was her heart, too. Despite the guilt, the worry that they might do badly in their exams because of her untimely departure, the suspicion that Madame Gallas would be too stern with them and ruin their enjoyment of the language, Erin felt sheer and utter relief that she only had the bones of one more week to get through. She was hanging on by a thread, the thinnest thread imaginable. Part of her, the part that felt a week was interminably long, wanted to stand up right now and walk without explanation from the classroom, through the grid of corridors that led to the main door, outside into the stinging rain, breaking into a run halfway down the drive, no longer able to disguise or control how desperately she needed to get away. In light of thoughts like this, and the disruption they’d already suffered in term one due to her ‘heart’ trouble (which had in fact been a severe – not to say, excruciatingly embarrassing – panic attack), it was much better that her students had someone more steady to guide them over the coming months. The sounds of fidgeting increased in volume, a sign that some of the students had finished their assignment. Erin’s attention was required, to control those students who were finished and allow the slower ones to complete their work in some degree of peace and quiet.

‘Tom, avez-vous terminé?’

‘Oui, Mademoiselle.’

‘Apportez-le ici.’

Tom gathered his book and pencil and, looking as though the weight of the world were on his shoulders, loped towards her desk. Erin quickly marked his work, keeping one eye on the classroom, particularly Darragh and Tristan, who looked as if they were up to no good.

‘Super, Tom, c’est très bien.’ He blushed at her praise. She hoped Madame Gallas would see how well he responded to positive feedback. Maybe she should leave notes on each child, a document outlining their strengths and weaknesses and how to get the best out of them. Would Madame Gallas be affronted by such a document? Surely she would take it in the spirit in which it was intended.

Madame Gallas – a native of France – had lived in Ireland for more than twenty years, but acted as though she had only just arrived. She had excellent linguistic skills along with a dogged determination to turn the flat Dublin accent of the students into a beautiful French accent like her own, but her rather irritable disposition and poor opinion of the students got in the way of her success. ‘The pupils, they speak out of turn and in rude tones of voice! They have zero respect. Irish children need lessons in good manners much more than lessons in French.’

Her nickname – Grouchy Gallas – was rather deserved, in Erin’s opinion, not that she would ever let on to the students that she agreed with them on this matter.

‘Lisha, venez ici!’

Lisha pushed back her seat. She came forward, her body strangely still even in movement, her eyes fixed ahead, no sideways glances at would-be friends, no smothered giggles at being singled out like this.

Erin smiled as she took the exercise book from Lisha’s outstretched hand.

‘Merci, Lisha.’

Lisha returned her smile with a slight upward movement of her lips. Of all the children in the class, Erin hated leaving her the most.

‘That’s a reflexive verb, Lisha,’ she said, making a small correction.

Lisha nodded gravely, and returned to her desk in the same autonomous manner in which she had left it. Erin watched, a lump in her throat. She’d been on the outer at school too, and even as an adult – a teacher, no less – her chronically awkward schoolgirl self was never far beneath the surface. Lisha had an obvious air of displacement which Erin recognised and worried about. She hoped that Madame Gallas would go out of her way to make Lisha feel included, and that she wouldn’t mistake Lisha’s reticence for the rudeness she so abhorred.

‘Aargh. Did you see that, Miss?’

‘Mademoiselle!’

‘Mademoiselle. I’m being bullied, Mademoiselle.’

‘Well, you might as well learn how to say it in French, Darragh. Il m’embête!’

‘Il m’embête!’

‘Excellent. Now, Tristan, pick up the paper you threw at Darragh, please.’

The next class was her fifth years, then first years, then lunch, and then sixth years. She’d had the sixth years all the way through their secondary education. She’d seen them morph from children to teenagers to young adults. They were confident, her sixth year students, confident in a way she’d never been. And polished, so polished and accomplished in how they spoke and dressed and carried themselves. Poised on the precipice of their adult lives, anything was possible and they knew it. She was tempted, very tempted, to take them aside and whisper a word of advice in their ears: ‘Jump at every opportunity that comes your way, travel as far and for as long as you possibly can, and don’t ever make the mistake of thinking your dreams will keep until later.’ Her confident, accomplished sixth year students would think she were a nutcase if she did such a thing, though. She’d been doing this job for too long, almost twelve years, and to be honest, she was a little crazy from it. How many students had she seen through? She was too exhausted to count. Physically, mentally, spiritually exhausted.

‘Clodagh, the classroom is not the place to be changing your hairstyle! Now leave your hair alone and collect the rest of the finished assignments for me, s’il vous plaît.’

‘No, Nicole, you cannot go to the toilet. You can hold on for the ten minutes that are left of class.’

‘Courtney, please don’t sneeze all over Caroline. You know where the tissues are …’

‘Tristan, this is your last warning! You will be laughing on the other side of your face if you have to spend your lunch break doing lines. Vous comprenez?’

Yes, she was exhausted from them. From the sheer effort it took to control them in class, in transit in the corridors, in the playground at lunchtime, not to mention the school tour to Paris last year. This job, this environment, was a bad place to be if one wasn’t feeling strong. The noise, the constant demands, the relentless visibility, the perceptiveness of the students and their ability to sense weakness and vulnerability from a mile away.

She wasn’t being fair. Yes, she was tired and weary beyond description, but that was as much due to things happening outside the classroom as to things happening within. There had been many good times, times when she’d laughed until tears ran down her face, times when she’d thought she’d burst with pride, and those precious moments when she could tell that she’d made a difference, a lasting impact on a student’s life. The time Darragh back-answered her in French, making her want to congratulate rather than scold him. The time Tristan used his initiative to learn as many French swear words as humanly possible. Courtney, Caroline and Nicole, inseparable at school and even more so on the school tour, exclaiming over the fashion in Paris and how ‘chic’ everything was! The sixth years learning a rap version of the French National Anthem for the Christmas concert last year. Yes, there had been many good times. To be honest, the problem wasn’t the students, the school, or even the job. The problem was her.

‘Okay, everyone, take out your homework books, please.’

‘Lisha, can you please hand out these audio discs? Merci.’

‘Nicole, don’t you have a homework book today?’

‘Attention tout le monde! Is everyone paying attention? Your homework is to listen to the disc and answer the related questions on page trente-deux.’

Erin tuned out from the groans and sighs and exaggerated dismay. How would they react if they knew that this was the last homework they would receive from her? She had already decided that next week would be homework free – to soften the news of her departure. She could hardly believe that she was going, finally going. For so long she’d been stagnant, trapped and unable to move. Leaving still wasn’t easy – in fact, it was extremely complicated – but she had everyone’s blessing and that had been the tipping point: that and the mini-crisis she’d had last year.

‘Mademoiselle, why are you choosing to go so far away?’

Erin imagined that it would be Lisha who would ask the million-dollar question: Lisha who knew all about travelling and getting away from things and the harsh truth of how difficult it was to start a new life. Australia was far away, too far away to return from on a whim or, more likely, in a rush of guilt, the same guilt that had trapped her until now. She had a friend in Australia, Melissa, and a job – if she wanted it – in the school where Melissa worked. Secondary school teachers were apparently in short supply, and the visa process had been disconcertingly swift (only a few months from start to end). More poignantly, Australia had been the next country on her itinerary when she’d had to cut short her travels twelve years ago. It felt like unfinished business, as though she couldn’t go forward with her life until she revisited the point at which it had gone so irrevocably off the rails. Australia made sense on so many levels, but it also made no sense at all. She vacillated between believing it was absolutely the right thing to do and thinking it was crazy, irresponsible and utterly self-indulgent. In fact, the only constant feeling she had about her upcoming trip was fear. Even at those moments when she was unwavering and convinced, she still managed to feel quite consistently petrified.

‘Mademoiselle, what will I do without you?’

Of course Lisha would not say this out loud, but her eyes would say it, her dark, expressive eyes flashing with panic, abandonment and betrayal. Lisha had the most to lose. Of all of them, she was the most vulnerable. She needed a figure of authority on her side, to keep the cruelty of the other girls in check, to involve her in the class and help make her less of a sitting target. She needed a friendly face, someone who smiled rather than sneered at her. Erin decided that she would speak to Madame Gallas at least about Lisha, if not about any of the others.

‘Hey, Miss, we should have a going-away party for you!’

She could imagine Tristan’s input, too: a party, the perfect excuse to slack off in class. Erin was in fact planning a class party, involving chocolate croissants and pains au chocolat, and some word games and music, all with a French theme, of course. She was having an adult going-away party, too – next weekend – a gathering of family, friends and a few work colleagues to send her off. She hadn’t wanted a big fuss and would have preferred to slip away unnoticed, but Laura had insisted.

‘This is a big move for you, Erin – and it should be marked and celebrated in a big way.’

Laura had been amazing. On a practical level, she’d organised a roster of family members to care for Moira – Erin’s mother, Laura’s aunt – and on a psychological level, she’d countered all the reasons why Erin couldn’t go with reasons why she could, and must.

‘Your own health is at risk here, Erin. Your body has given you a warning.’

‘Don’t worry about your mum. She won’t be alone. There’s a big family of us here to help.’

‘It’s only for a year. Remember that. You owe yourself this. A change of scene.’

‘You’re not being selfish, silly. This time out is life-saving and non-negotiable. Got it?’

Though Laura was her first cousin, they hadn’t always been close. As children, the three-year age difference had seemed vast. Erin was at playschool by the time Laura was born, and well established in primary school when her cousin, an extraordinarily self-possessed little girl, started in Junior Infants. The same had applied to secondary school and university, Erin always a stage ahead in her life and consequently out of reach. The birth of Olivia, Laura’s daughter, had changed things, for once putting Laura a step ahead. Olivia’s dimpled face, cherubic arms and legs and surprisingly hearty laugh drew Erin to cuddle and play with her at family gatherings. Spending time with the baby meant spending time with Laura, and it was often the two of them taking turns at rocking the pram in a quiet room of the house while the party raged on next door. Laura had accepted Erin’s help so gratefully and humbly that Erin soon extended an offer to babysit anytime she was needed. And so, through Olivia, they’d transitioned from a rather distant relationship to something much closer, providing support and advice to each other, becoming friends and allies amidst the boisterous, male-dominated family of which they were part.

Erin glanced at the clock. One minute to go until the bell. She released her hold on the class and allowed them to talk amongst themselves, or in the case of Tristan and Darragh, fling-shot each other with balls of scrunched-up paper. She allowed herself the same leniency, letting her thoughts drift to Australia, imagining herself teaching French at Macquarie Grammar School (where Melissa worked), her students cooperative and inspiring, with eye-pleasing tans and sun-streaked hair, an unrelenting blue sky visible through the windows, warm air waiting to caress her face and skin when she went outside.

The bell rang, its sound harsh and intrusive against the soft tones of her daydream. Her students jumped to their feet, suddenly in an extraordinary rush.

‘Push your chairs in after you, please.’

‘One at a time through the door.’

‘Tristan, please keep your hands – and legs – to yourself.’

As Erin continued to talk, her words falling on deaf ears, she was struck with a terrible thought. What if the Australian students were just a better-looking version of the students here? Had she kidded herself by believing they would be different, easier to handle, less draining by the end of the day? Did doing the exact same job, coaching, chastising and coaxing another set of teenagers, qualify as a ‘live-saving’ change? When the initial glow of being in another country faded, and the day-to-day realities of her job reasserted themselves, would she feel trapped and panicky and frightened all over again?

‘Tristan! I am blue in the face from telling you to behave!’

And what if there was another Tristan waiting for her in Macquarie Grammar School? Or a kid worse than Tristan, without any interest in French at all – not even the swear words – and without that ‘loveable rogue’ smile that made it so hard to stay cross with Tristan?

A tanned, more evil version of Tristan Keary. Now that was a truly scary thought!