Short Story: Sweets To The Sweet

Short Story: Sweets To The Sweet

This piece has not been edited by the ShortbreadStories team.

Mr Clenachan sauntered up to the back of his class and propped himself against the wall where the times tables were displayed. From there, he could see the back of the heads of his 34 pupils, all busily engaged in copying the passage from the board into their ink exercise jotters. He slipped his hands into his jacket pockets and jingled his coins.

Few other sounds permeated the atmosphere; a slight scuffle of feet, the thin scrape of nibs on paper, the tap of the pen on the edge of the inkwell, a faint sigh from a pupil as a blob of ink plopped on to his page, a sudden rise in the hum from the class next door.

Thursday afternoon with his Primary 7 class. Mr Clenachan turned to gaze at the clock on the wall above him. In ten minutes, he’d stop the pupils, order them to tidy up and then bring out the battered copy of Tom Sawyer to read to them, as he had done to every P7 class for the last twenty years. They always enjoyed it, especially when he put on an American accent, gleaned from watching The Lone Ranger, and played Injun Joe with as much malice as he could inject into his voice. Wee Jessie Brown’s eyes grew wide and her mouth would fall open as she listened.

A pleasant end to what had been a pretty average day. And then, of course, Thursday meant...... he turned to look at the back of Jessie Brown’s head. Her lank, unwashed hair hung below the collar of a greying shirt that had once belonged to her brother. Or brothers. The cuffs were fraying and it buttoned up like a boy’s. Yes, Thursday was a good day. Especially this Thursday. It had possibilities for that.

The class still bent over their handwriting. Heavy stroke down and flick up, heavy stroke down and flick up. Dip the nib in the inkwell and repeat. Mr Clenachan paced slowly up the aisle, glancing at jotters right and left.

He stopped. ‘Maxwell,’ he said, cuffing the lad’s ear. ‘I see the spiders are marching across your page again today.’

Maxwell grinned uncomfortably while the class dutifully tittered.

‘Just as well your football skills are considerably better than your handwriting.’ Maxwell was a brilliant wee forward in the school football team. Mr Clenachan had coached him ever since he’d spotted his talent way back in P3. And the team were heading for another schools’ championship win, if Mr Clenachan had anything to do with it.

He stepped up to his desk and opened the lid. His Lochgelly belt lay curled inside like a sleeping dog alongside the boxes of chalk, the blue covered daily register and a pile of absence notes from parents in varying degrees of literacy. Mr Clenachan rummaged about till he found the paper bag of sweets. He was running short. Another visit to the sweetie shop was in order. He slipped one of Mrs Cook’s lime green summer boilings into his mouth. He kept the bag in the desk so that severe bouts of weeping caused by skint knees or departed mothers could be soothed by the offering of a sweetie. Mrs Cooks’s sweetie shop was across from the school and sold cheap brightly coloured, sugar laden delicacies to the pupils.

Sliding the lurid green sweet into his cheek, he closed his desk and surveyed his class. A picture of concentration as fingers and thumbs pressed hard down on pens and scraped their way across the page. So far, no broken nibs. A belting offence.

Clenachan was comfortable in his job. He knew he was respected for his strong discipline and for his care of his pupils. That was easy. Belt when necessary and organise an end of term trip to the seaside. Half of the poor souls had never seen the sea. It was the highlight of their school careers. He remembered a pupil gasping in awe at the sight of the waves rolling in on Saltcoats beach. The South Pacific it was not, but it may well have been in wee Jimmy’s eyes. And then there was the one-off trip ‘doon the watter’ on the Duchess of Hamilton. He grimaced slightly at the memory. That had cost him a good part of his summer wages but at least it had prevented him losing his job. And he’d moved to this school. To start again.

His eyes, unseeing as he remembered, focused on Marjorie Elliott. She must have sensed his gaze because she looked up and blushed when he caught her eye. Mr Clenachan sighed. She was already filling her gym slip with unhampered breasts which showed no signs of ceasing their burgeoning growth. And she knew her power already. There was a knowingness about her that rang alarm bells in Clenachan’s mind. Keep well clear, he heard his inner voice, stay well away. Girls like Marjorie Elliott spelt danger.

The door opened slightly and the headmaster peered in.

‘Can I help you?’ Mr Clenachan asked without rising from his desk.

The Head frowned. ‘All in order, Mr Clenachan?’

‘Of course.’

‘Good.’ The Head nodded and closed the door. Clenachan listened but could barely hear the footsteps as they glided away down the corridor.

Stupid man, he thought. Stupid, incompetent oaf, thank the lord.

Five minutes. He’d call the class to clear up in five minutes. Then Tom Sawyer. Tom and Huck were about to enter the caves so he would give his reading plenty of atmosphere; long pauses, dropping his voice, fixing his eyes on individual pupils.

The noise from the Primary 6 class through the thin partition walls increased. He heard Miss Anderson’s voice calling for quiet. Clenachan smirked. She was young and inexperienced and probably only in the job until some poor sod carried her off in wedlock. Women weren’t allowed to stay in the job once they married. It was only women like old Miss Hamilton who could make a career of it. Brittle, skinny yet imposing, she drummed reading into the infants till they could all chorus their way through the Rosebud Reading Scheme.

Miss Anderson shrilled at some miscreant. A boy shouted back a garbled insult. Mr Clenachan lifted his desk lid, took out his belt and headed out of the door. His class froze, pens in mid-air. They heard his voice, a silence, a sharp thwack, a brief whimper.

When Mr Clenachan returned and flung his belt back into his desk, the class were all working industriously, heads bowed over their pens.

He slammed his desk lid down and Jessie Brown jumped, her pen leaving a scrawl and a blot on her page. She looked as if she was about to cry.

‘Pens down, everyone,’ he said. ‘Blot your work and the person at the back of each row collect in the jotters.’

While the class went about their tasks, Clenachan stretched behind him to the bookshelf and took down Tom Sawyer. Seeing this, the class quickly tidied up and sat, hands clasped on their desks. Mr Clenachan swallowed the last of his sweet and beamed round at them.

‘Well done. That’s what I like to see. Marjorie, you’re sitting the best. Have a sweet.’ He opened his desk, took out another vivid green boiling and threw it to her. She fumbled the catch and dived under her desk to retrieve it. ‘Tsk, tsk,’ he said. ‘You’ll never make the rounders team if you catch like that.’

As the class giggled, he opened the book and began.

The sound of the janitor ringing the bell brought an involuntary gasp of disappointment from the pupils. Tom Sawyer’s dilemma would have to wait for another day for resolution. Mr Clenachan closed the book and replaced it on the bookshelf. The class waited, silent.

‘All stand.’

A rumble of feet, a creak of wooden seats being flipped upright, then silence again.

‘Good afternoon, boys and girls.’

‘Goo-ood afternoo-oon, Mister Clenachan,’ the young voices swooped and soared.

He pointed at the row standing next to the windows. They shrugged their schoolbags on to their shoulders and trooped out, bursting into chatter as they reached the corridor.

One by one, the rows were dismissed.

‘Not you, Jessie,’ he said. ‘This is Thursday.’

It was pathetic how eager Mrs Brown had been to let her daughter stay for half an hour after school on Thursdays. Clenachan had explained she was below average in her reading and arithmetic but he believed she was capable of catching up. To such an end, he was willing to give up some of his own time to tutor her one to one. Mrs Brown was thrilled that such a popular teacher as Mr Clenachan, the coach of the successful football team, was prepared to sacrifice his time for her daughter.

She had nodded vigorously as Mr Clenachan had outlined his scheme of work for Jessie.

‘Ah cannae read much masel and ah cannae help her ony and her brithers urny much better. An Joe disnae read at aw.’

Joe, the latest in a long line of men, no doubt, thought Clenachan. Mrs Brown was visibly pregnant beneath her shabby blue coat. Another pupil to make its way through the infants and lower primary classes to end up eventually in his Primary 7 class. If he was still there in eleven years time. Something in him hoped it was a girl.

So Jessie stayed behind every Thursday after school for extra help in reading and arithmetic. It had taken numerous sweeties, endless patience and a lot of persistence but at last he felt that she was ready. Today could well be the day.

‘Wait in the cupboard,’ he said. I want to speak to the headmaster.’ The walk-in cupboard was just big enough for a small armchair in among the shelves of textbooks and jotters, the spinning globe and the flip-over sol-fa music chart. It was where he’d spent Thursday after Thursday patiently coaxing and persuading Jessie to trust him. With the door closed and the light on, it was almost cosy. Almost.

Clenachan left his classroom and slowly walked along the corridor. Miss Anderson had already left, rushing home to her parents for her tea, no doubt. Miss Hamilton and the other infant teachers finished early and from the front door of the school, he could see the Head swinging his leg over the bar of his bicycle and pedalling off, his briefcase resting in the basket on the front.

The other classrooms were empty of life and the janitor was ensconced in his bolthole, the radio blaring, a cigarette glowing in his fingers, a mug of tea at his elbow and his face buried in a newspaper.

Mr Clenachan hurried back to his classroom and opened the cupboard door. Jessie was perched on the edge of the chair but she jumped up when she saw him.

Afterwards, he gave her his handkerchief to wipe her hands and her gymslip. Not that he was concerned that her mother would notice. One more stain was neither here nor there. She handed the scrunched up handkerchief to him and stood there waiting.

‘Run along now Jessie,’ he said. ‘Time’s up. You can come again next week but we’ll keep this our little secret, won’t we?’

She stared at him. ‘Whit aboot the money?’ Her expression was determined, knowing.

‘What money?’ Nausea rose in his stomach.

‘Ma uncle Joe gies me...’ she paused, ‘...hauf a croon.’

‘Half a crown?’

‘Aye. No to tell ma maw.’ He could see her confidence rising. ‘Or ten bob for the whole way, ye ken.’

Clenachan felt the blood leaving his face and sweat breaking out on his brow. Jessie obviously noticed too. She leaned in to him. ‘Ah’ll no tell sir, honest. No if ah get ma money.’

Clenachan reached into his pocket.

After Jessie left, he watched from the classroom window as she skipped along the pavement and headed straight into Mrs Cook’s sweetie shop.