Читать книгу Deadly Lessons - David Russell W. - Страница 8

Let’s start with the confession right now that from a very early age I have had little success talking with members of the opposite sex. That I managed to talk to a woman long enough to actually get married was an amazing feat. Dissolving the marriage with a bitter, acrimonious divorce was a much easier task to accomplish. For a man who has made two careers essentially out of talking to people, my lack of communication skills was well documented by anyone who’d ever made the “mistake” (generally their term) of dating me. I have this uncanny ability not to talk about emotions, desires or anything that has to do with relationships.

Often my lack of skill runs so deep, I found myself destroying relationships I didn’t even know I was in. One evening in Grade Ten, a girl I went to school with challenged me to a game of tennis. It took me a long time to agree to play—nearly a minute—because I wasn’t much of a tennis player, and I really liked this girl. I mean, I really liked her (that’s Grade Ten-speak). What chance would I have if I showed her how much I sucked at the game? And why was she asking me anyway?

It was an unusually warm spring evening as we walked up to the tennis courts nearly two miles away. Sweat had formed on my brow, partially from the heat and partially due to my nervousness at spending an evening with this goddess from French class. We were walking past the well manicured lawn of a quaint little two-storey house about a block from home, when suddenly Melissa (a name I’m making up because even I can’t remember her actual name) grabbed my hand and pulled me through the oscillating lawn sprinkler, soaking us both in refreshing cold water. As we reached the edge of the lawn, I laughed, let go of Melissa’s hand and continued on to the tennis courts. Melissa later told friends she didn’t want to see me any more, since I obviously had no interest in pursuing a romance. Who knew that grabbing my hand was an expression of her romantic desires?

With a foundation based upon that type of historical success, I can’t say I was looking forward to sitting down to have a heart to heart chat with a female student about her “alleged” relationship with her teacher, my colleague, my friend. Sometimes, so I’ve been told, a teacher is one of the only people to whom a student is able to open up. A good teacher is often a good counsellor, even more so than the professional counsellors.

There are definitely protocols to follow in the kind of situation Carl had brought to me. Relationships between teachers and students were common enough that formal procedures had been established about how these situations should be handled. I hadn’t really gotten around to reading those formal procedures, hoping I would never find myself in a position to have to know them.

I knew at least what the union’s position was: no teacher should report on the professional conduct of another without first reporting their concern to the colleague in question. Even after that concern is raised with another teacher, he or she must be informed—in writing—of the intention to raise the issue with school management. The exception to this rule came when any sexual abuse, exploitation or inappropriate relationship between teacher and student was occurring. Then—and only then—was there no obligation to inform the suspect teacher of any intent to report his or her conduct to the principal.

The catch, of course, was the fact that while I didn’t practice law any more, I had just been retained for the paltry sum of a dollar by Carl Turbot. Therefore, everything he had told me was protected under the principle of solicitor-client privilege. My options were thus: I could follow the duties of my teaching profession and report Carl’s problem to superiors for fear that Trish’s story was true, or I could try to defend Carl and defuse the situation before it got any worse. The problem with option “A” was that I risked getting disbarred for violating my client’s confidence. I might have given up law for the time being, but it was way too early in my teaching career to determine whether or not I was willing to completely abandon my legal credentials. I was inclined to believe Carl. Call me gullible, but I had to give him the benefit of the doubt at least long enough to investigate his story.

So, at the tail end of lunch hour, I headed down to the main office to seek out the timetable of Trish Bellamy. Fortunately, last period that day I had my preparation period, time allotted to prepare lessons, photocopy, contact parents, mark papers and the myriad other tasks that fill the day of a high school teacher. In my case, add “interviewing potential hostile witness” to the list.

For some reason only a provincial bureaucrat can fathom, Physical Education is not required in high school past the tenth grade. The Ministry of Education feels that by the ripe old age of sixteen, students are ready to begin their adult couch potato years. Still, some senior students take the class out of interest or desire to maintain some degree of physical fitness beyond using the fingers on their right hands to operate their computer mouse to navigate internet chat rooms with their friends. Tricia was one of those.

By the time I wound my way down to the gym, class was already underway, and the students were taking advantage of the rare, late fall sunshine to run outside in the crisp November air. I found the P.E. teacher, Ralph Bremner, standing in the exit doorway of the gym, waiting for the students to return from their fitness sortie. Another educational mystery I had wondered about since my own high school days was why so few P.E. teachers actually ran with their students. Bremner cupped a cigarette in his left hand. Role modelling.

“Oh, hey there, ahhh, umm,” Bremner began, surreptitiously tossing his cigarette onto the ground.

“Winston,” I reminded him, “Winston Patrick.”

“Right, Winston. Sorry about that. You’re the lawyer, right?”

“I was. I’m a full-time educator now.”

“Right. I was just . . . .”

“Relax, Mr. Bremner.”

“Ralph. It’s Ralph.”

“Okay, relax Ralph. We all have our vices. I’m not here to bust you for smoking.”

“Right. I’m sure you’ve figured out how it is. So few hours in the day. So much to do. Sometimes you need to sneak in your breaks whenever you can get them.”

“I understand,” I told him, putting on my neutral lawyer face to hide my quasi-disgust at this physical education teacher sucking back a Players Light.

“Wow. So you gave up the courtroom for the classroom. Doesn’t that seem like kind of a step backward? No offence.”

“None taken. If you met some of the people I got to work with as defence counsel, you might think differently.”

Bremner sort of chortled. “You may not have worked here long enough to meet all of our people. Hell, here you’re probably just meeting them before they get to the court room.” He started to laugh, then graduated into a hacking wheeze. As he choked, his large paunch tottered up and down above the waistband of red and white Adidas pants that looked like they dated at least as far back as my high school days.

“You all right?” I asked.

“I’m fine,” Bremner replied, recovering sufficiently to participate in dialogue. “It’s this cold weather.”

“Yeah, it’s a bitch.”

“So, what can I do for you, Winston?” Bremner asked, recognizing slowly but surely that I probably had some purpose for standing out in the cold with him.

“I was thinking of going for a run with your class,” I replied casually.

“Really?”

“No.”

“Ah, shit, you had me going there for a second.”

“I’m looking for one of your students. I was hoping I could steal her for a moment.”

“You just want one?” he smiled. For a moment I worried he might start laughing again. I don’t know CPR.

“One will do for now. Tricia Bellamy.”

“Uh-oh. What’s she done now?”

“Done? Trish a problem student in your class?”

“Nah, not really a problem. She’s just got some attitude at times. Truthfully, she’s not really the kind of girl we usually get in elective phys-ed.”

“What kind of girl is that?”

“You know. Nothing wrong with her really. She’s usually pleasant enough. But when she’s in a pisser of a mood, there’s almost no working with her. You know how melodramatic teenaged girls can get ‘at that time of the month.’ ” Bremner made those obnoxious quotation marks with his hands.

“Not really, but I guess I’ll learn.”

“Yes you will, my friend. Luckily for me, when they get bitchy, I can just make them go run outside. Keeps me sane, if you know what I mean.”

“Sure. So you don’t mind if I take her away for a few minutes?”

He looked across the field as the first of the runners began to appear. “Nah, help yourself.” The first four or five runners approached the entrance to the gym. “Here she comes now,” he continued.

“Which one?” I asked him.

“You don’t know her? She’s not one of yours?”

“No. I just need to ask her something to do with one of her classes.”

“Oh. Well, that’s her. First girl in the group. She’s pretty fast, I’ll give her that.”

I nodded. I had no idea what constitutes fast for a teenager. I wondered if fast to Ralph meant anyone who could complete a run without stopping for a smoke break.

“Trish!” Bremner suddenly bellowed, nearly jolting me into the wall behind us. Smoking hack or no, this man could project his voice. I thought he might double as a drama teacher. A student, still breathing heavily from her run, turned and trotted lightly towards us.

Tricia Bellamy was the kind of girl that sent eighteen-year-old boys for a cold shower. High cheekbones, deep green eyes and an engaging smile peered out from under beautiful, thick brown hair tied back in a tight knot on the back of her head for her P.E. class. For a student who thus far I had come to think of as a bookworm, Trish had the body of an athlete. Muscular arms, rock-firm legs and shoulders that looked like she could probably press her own weight, held together by a torso that seemed never to have heard of the term “body fat.” I suddenly thought: if Carl had fallen for a student, at least on appearances, I could see why Tricia Bellamy might be the one.

“Trish,” Bremner said, “Mr. Patrick wants to see you for a few minutes.”

Trish looked up at me and smiled. “Hi, Mr. Patrick?” If the thought of some strange teacher coming to see her gave her any reason to be worried, Trish didn’t show it.

“Hi. Yes. I’m Mr. Patrick. I teach in the Social Studies department.”

“Oh, yeah,” she replied. “My best friend Jessica McWilliams is in your Law class.”

“Sure, yeah, I know Jessica. Do you mind if we talk for a couple of minutes?”

A brief flash of genuine concern passed across her face. “Is everything okay? Is something wrong with Jessica?”

“No, no. She’s fine,” I told her. “I just need to ask you about something school-related. Why don’t we go inside? I may be dressed warmer than you are, but you’ve had the benefit of cardio exercise.”

She relaxed again and smiled. “Sure,” she said, following me into the gym. We walked across the gym to the door exiting into the hallway on the far side, small talking about the run the class had just endured. Trish seemed to think it wasn’t so bad and had actually enjoyed blowing off steam after her French class the period before.

“You don’t have sore pieds?” I asked.

“Non, monsieur,” she responded with what was becoming a regular smile. I was not looking forward to this conversation. In the just over two months of my teaching career—longer if you count my student teaching practicum the year before—I had by no means become an expert on adolescent behaviour. It was nearly impossible for me to conceptualize this sweet-looking, pleasant student concocting a story of sexual misconduct against a well respected teacher. Still, I’ve been duped before, and I didn’t think it was a good idea for Carl’s legal counsel to find himself in a precarious situation with a student. I made sure we stayed out of earshot of the rest of the returning gym class, but within clear view of Ralph Bremner and the rest of Tricia’s classmates.

“So,” I began badly, “how’re you doing?” Did I mention I was never good at talking to the opposite sex?

“Pretty good, I guess. How are you?” She had been raised polite, if nothing else.

“I’m fine. Thank you for asking.” I stopped for a minute and wondered how to begin. If Carl was telling the truth—as I believed he was—this was a troubled girl. I had no way of predicting what her reaction might be to my questioning her about her relationship with her biology teacher. Would she freak out? Cause a scene? Spit at me? You never know with teenagers these days. Man, I’m starting to sound like my dad.

“Mr. Patrick, did you want something? Why are you pulling me away from class?” Smart, too.

I sighed. “Okay,” I began. “I need to talk to you about one of your teachers. Mr. Turbot.”

Any pretense Trish had been displaying had been false. My bringing up Carl’s name had the effect of sucker punching her. Her eyes grew to twice the size they had been just seconds before, and it took nearly a minute before she was able to respond.

“What about him?” she finally managed.

“Well, I...he’s your biology teacher, correct?”

“That’s right.”

“And, Tricia, would you say you and Mr. Turbot get along all right?”

“Holy shit!” she blurted. “He told you.”

“He told me what?”

“Cut the bullshit, Mr. Patrick. It’s obvious why you’re talking to me about Carl.” She used his first name like it was something she did everyday.

“Carl? You refer to Mr. Turbot as Carl?”

“He told you about us.”

“What is it you think he told me, Trish? Why don’t you tell me about you and...‘Carl’?”

She suddenly took me by the arm and led me through the gym’s exit doors into the hallway beyond. Given the circumstances, I was leery about being alone with Tricia without any witnesses, but if I wanted her to continue our conversation, I might have to work on her terms.

“You know about our relationship, Mr. Patrick?” she asked when we were out of sight of the rest of the class.

“I know what Mr. Turbot has told me. I’d like to hear your perspective.”

“Why? What’s it to you?” Her soft demeanour had begun to crack around the edges.

Sometimes honesty is the best policy, and from a legal standpoint, I knew I would eventually have to disclose the nature of my relationship with Carl. “Mr. Turbot has retained me, Tricia.”

“Retained you?”

“Yes. I’m still a member of the bar. I’m still a lawyer. Mr. Turbot has hired me to represent him should issues arise out of your allegations of unprofessional conduct.”

“Why would he hire a lawyer? I don’t understand this. What’s the matter with him?” Trish’s voice was beginning to rise.

“Tricia,” I said as soothingly as possible, “according to Mr. Turbot, you have threatened to report a sexual relationship to the principal. He’s having a difficult time trying to figure out why you’re trying to destroy his career and his professional reputation.”

“After what he’s done to me, he can’t figure out why I’m angry? What a prick. I can’t believe I’ve loved him as long as I have.”

I tried to let that pass for the moment. “What do you mean ‘after all he’s done to you,’ What exactly did Mr. Turbot do? I need to know if I’m going to be able to help either one of you.”

Tricia looked at me with anger flaring in her eyes. “He broke up with me.”