Teacher's Dead (2 page)

When Mrs Martel, the head teacher, invited her on to the stage you could feel the anticipation in the hall. This was going to be heavy. Some kids held their heads down, about five pupils began to clap their hands, but when they realised that they were in the minority they stopped. Mrs Joseph surprised us all.
She smiled as she took to the stage and started her speech by telling us not to feel sorry for her. She walked to and fro across the stage, unlike Mrs Martel, who always stood still when speaking.

‘I think it would be hard for anyone to imagine the pain that I’ve been through,’ she said on the move. ‘My husband kissed me goodbye one morning, and came to this wonderful school, to do what he loved doing best, teaching you wonderful kids. He even called me at lunchtime and told me that he was having a really good day. He told me that one pupil had come up to him and said, “Sir, you rock,” which apparently meant that he was good. The moment I was told of his death I didn’t believe it. After all I had just spoken to him and he had said he was having a good day. And anyway he was at school – teachers get killed in American schools, I thought, not in our great British schools. But I soon couldn’t hide from the reality. For many days I locked myself away, I kept my house in darkness and I communicated with the world outside as little as I possibly could. There was a numbness of all my senses. When I touched things they didn’t feel the same. I could no longer hear the simple sounds that I normally found pleasure in, like birds singing in my garden, or snatches of conversation from people walking past my house. The only comfort I really found was in the darkness. Then I began to feel angry, I mean really angry. I turned into
this person that I didn’t like. I never lose my temper, but now I found myself smashing things, some things that I really valued. I became aggressive and bitter, and then I started feeling sorry for myself.

‘But soon I realised how much that was holding me back. I had lost my husband, the man I loved, but the more I kept feeling sorry for myself the more depressed I got. I remember just after we got married, Edgar, or Mr Joseph as you know him, lost his mother in a car crash. I hardly knew his mother, but I was so saddened by this sudden death that I found it difficult to eat and do everyday things, but he told me that his mother wouldn’t want us to wallow in sadness. He said that his mother would want us to take stock of what had happened and move on. He gave me a lecture on the difference between mourning a death and celebrating a life. Edgar’s mother turned him into a celebrator of life, Edgar turned me into a celebrator of life, and I want you to celebrate his life.

‘There are still many questions to be answered, but I have stopped asking, why me? I am moving on. I have to. I don’t know how much you realise this, but Edgar loved teaching, and he loved teaching you. Some of the knowledge you have is a little bit of Edgar that lives on in you. I want you to celebrate his life; I want each one of you to live on. Thank you.’

Not once did I take my eyes off her. I had heard that celebration of life thing before but it usually
came from a priest, or a teacher. It seemed like an easy thing to say, but I found it astonishing this time because it was Mr Joseph’s wife who was speaking. She had less anger, and less sorrow, than any one of us in that hall on that morning.

When the assembly was over I managed to get close to Mrs Joseph. I was nervous but I had to ask her a question.

‘Excuse me, Mrs Joseph. I’m sorry if you think I’m being rude, but I just wanted to know. Don’t you feel like you want revenge or something? OK, maybe not revenge, but justice, don’t you want justice?’

She smiled. ‘Justice? What is real justice? That’s not my main concern. I want to use this time to think, to think about life, death, and everything else that we have to do with our time. I want to think about moving forward, I have thoughts about life without my husband, but I also spare some thoughts for the parents of whoever killed my husband.’

‘What do you think about them?’ I asked.

She wasn’t sure who I meant. ‘The killers or the parents?’

‘The parents,’ I said.

‘Well, I think that they never killed him, and I just wonder what they are going through.’

‘Do you know them?’

‘No,’ she replied. ‘But I know that they are humans, whoever they are.’

A voice came from behind me. ‘Move on now, Jones.’ It was Mrs Martel. ‘I don’t want to rush you, but you do have a lesson to go to.’

That’s when I started thinking, that’s when I started asking questions. Why was it that the people causing trouble in the media were the people who were most removed from the situation? Could Mrs Joseph, the person closest to the victim, really be so forgiving? I wanted to know what kind of fifteen-year-old goes to school with a knife and kills his teacher. I knew that Lionel had had arguments with Mr Joseph, but so had I. I knew some people thought Lionel was a bit weird, but lots of people thought I was weird too. I knew that some people said he was dangerous, but what did that mean? They also said Neil Franks was dangerous because he was a wicked MC, and swallowing chewing gum was dangerous because it would stick to your heart, and kissing was dangerous because you could get cold sores. So dangerous meant many things. Were people scared of danger, or were people scared of the truth?

When I first heard about the way Mr Joseph was buried I thought it was really weird. The only people there were his wife and a small group of relatives. The press were asked to stay away and all Mrs Joseph asked of the school was that we send our thoughts. She didn’t mean write them down and send them by post, she meant that we should just think them, the idea being that they would arrive under their own steam. What I thought was even weirder was where he was buried. He was buried in some woodland, in a biodegradable cardboard coffin, with no flowers and no gravestone, just a small tree planted where a gravestone would have been. At first I thought it was all a bit nutty but then I began to understand. He wasn’t religious, so there was no priest, just a friend talking about him and reading some of his favourite poems. Compare that to what we did at school.

Our head teacher organised a big memorial service. Other local schools were invited, as were the families
of all the pupils, the local bishop, imam and rabbi, and a pagan, and a Hindu priest, and the world’s media were there to record it all. My mother didn’t make it, she said she wanted to, but she just couldn’t afford to take a day off work. Still, there were so many people there that they even put speakers out in the playground for everyone who had to stand outside. The great and the good all stood up and did their speeches but they all sounded as if they weren’t speaking to us in the hall, they sounded like they were speaking to the TV cameras, all doing mini performances, all except Mrs Joseph. What she said was pretty much what she’d said in the assembly some weeks before but she still sounded like she was speaking to us, she was still very personal, and because it was so real she was the only one who didn’t get applause after her speech. Everyone was stunned into silence.

After the service everyone flocked around Mrs Joseph, and outside the school she was stopped by people with microphones desperately seeking something for the six o’clock news. I really wanted to speak to her again but I knew I stood no chance whilst the television people surrounded her. Fortunately as soon as they got what they wanted they were off. All I had to do now was get past Mrs Martel, who had become her private bodyguard. That was tough. I had to wait until almost everyone had gone before I could make my move, and then they were heading for the
staffroom and I knew that if they went in there I would have to wait ages before she came out. So I made my move, and just as I was making my move I realised that I didn’t have anything to say.

‘Hello, Mrs Joseph. Good to see you again. Well, not good really, if you know what I mean. I mean, it’s good to see you, but not like this. I mean, sorry.’

‘Don’t be sorry,’ she said. ‘I know what you mean. Sometimes I say things that just don’t come out right. Don’t worry, I know what you’re trying to say.’ She paused for a moment before adding, ‘I remember you. We met before.’

‘That’s right,’ I said, happy to be remembered. ‘When you spoke at the assembly.’

Mrs Martel interrupted. ‘He’s always asking questions, this one.’

‘That’s not a bad thing,’ said Mrs Joseph.

‘I suppose you have a question ready right now,’ said Mrs Martel.

‘Yes I do,’ I said quickly. As I replied I realised that once again I didn’t have anything to say. But I had to say something.

‘Are you OK?’ I said finally.

‘I’m OK,’ Mrs Joseph replied.

Mrs Martel looked at me, rather puzzled. ‘Are you OK?’

‘Yes, I’m fine.’

I could see that Mrs Martel was about to dismiss
me. She spoke to me as if she was in class.

‘Well, what do you have to say?’

So I said the first thing that came into my mind.

‘My name is Jackson Jones. I’m one of the witnesses.’

Mrs Joseph reached out and shook my hand. ‘Pleased to meet you, Jackson. How are you coping?’

‘I’m doing OK.’

‘The students have all been offered counselling,’ said Mrs Martel.

‘Is it helping?’ asked Mrs Joseph.

‘Well,’ I hesitated. ‘I’m not actually having any counselling, but you could say I’m having a kind of therapy.’

‘I didn’t know that,’ said Mrs Martel.

‘Interesting,’ said Mrs Joseph.

‘It’s therapy that’s like individually tailored to me. Maybe I’ll tell you about it another time.’

Mrs Joseph smiled. ‘Yes.’

‘OK, Jackson. On your way now,’ said Mrs Martel. ‘He’s a strange one. Harmless, but strange.’

That’s Mrs Martel, our great head teacher. She would often speak about you as if you weren’t there. There was absolutely no subtlety about her. When I told her that I was having a kind of therapy tailored to me she just presumed I was paying someone money to talk to them. She couldn’t imagine that I was finding my own way of dealing with it, and I was. I was
traumatised by what I saw, and I was pretty sure it was going to stay with me for the rest of my life, but we all have different ways of overcoming things, and my way is to try to understand why things happen. I just didn’t want to lie back and let life happen to me. My mother said that when I was small the word I said the most was
why
. But I wasn’t going to tell Mrs Martel all that so, ‘Goodbye,’ I said. And I went home.

That evening my mother brought home a whole stack of newspapers, much more than usual. I watched her as she flicked through the pages, stopping briefly every now and again, but then carrying on after a quick scan.

‘Mum, what are you up to?’

‘A friend at work said she saw you in a paper,’ she said, excited. Then she yelled, ‘There you are. Look at the state of you, you don’t half look miserable.’

‘Mum, it was a memorial service, not a graduation ceremony.’

‘Yes, but it’s not the end of the world.’

‘No, Mum, it’s not the end of the world, but it’s the end of someone’s life.’

Mum read quietly for a moment before adding, ‘Well, it says here that Mrs Joseph said that the service is not about someone dying, but about someone living. She said it’s a celebration of life, so there.’

‘I know, and I agree with her, but I still think it’s no time for fun and games, you have to be respectful.’

My mum knew I was right but she had to have the last word.

‘All I’m saying is looking like you hate yourself is not being respectful.’

But I wouldn’t let her have the last word.

‘And all I’m saying is, it’s not about the way you look, it’s about the way you feel.’ I reached out for the newspaper. ‘Let me have a look.’

It has to be said, I did look really sad, but I didn’t remember feeling that sad. I came to the sad conclusion that this was how I looked when I wasn’t wearing any particular expression. It was my default face.

Mum left the room and I went and sat on the floor where the rest of the newspapers were and began to scan through them myself. Every one of them covered the memorial service, and every one of them claimed to be an exclusive. Then a report caught my eye. It was by Mark Townsend, a local journalist who had gone on to the local streets to ask people what they thought should happen to Boy A and Boy B. The piece had the headline, ‘Let them bleed’. The worst quote of all came from a boy called Adi Macenzi. He said, ‘Those two are children of the devil, and they should go to hell and burn in everlasting fire, like their father, the devil.’

It wasn’t just that I thought it was a terrible thing to say, which I thought it was, what really got me was the person who was saying it. Adi Macenzi had left
school earlier that year but before he left he made sure he earned himself the reputation as the worst bully ever in the history of school. With his back-up of four followers he would demand sweets, goods and money, with menaces. For the last three months before he left he made my life hell, and he drove Delbert Singh to attempt suicide. Delbert left and moved on to another school, but Adi Macenzi got away free. He wasn’t even approached about it. Apparently there was no evidence. There may not have been any evidence but every pupil in school knew the truth and most were just too scared to say. I was. I knew about the school’s no-bullying policy, it was pasted all over the walls. I knew that if you let bullies get away with it they got away with it more, but he was smart enough not to get caught by teachers, and we were all scared. No one was willing to make the first move to end his reign of terror. We all thought that if we did one of his cronies would step up and take his place. When he did leave school one of his cronies did take his place, Terry Stock, another vicious waste of space. I knew now that I had to talk to Adi Macenzi. Sitting in front of a counsellor wasn’t my style but understanding what happened was, it would be my therapy.

I knew that Macenzi spent his days hanging outside a train station selling on used tickets. His nights were
spent outside a local club trying to get clubbers to use illegal taxis, so it wasn’t difficult finding him. On my first visit to the train station that Saturday afternoon I found him trying to convince two Polish students that buying a couple of return tickets from him would be cheaper than buying them over the counter because of something to do with peak times. Fortunately they realised that there were no peak times on Saturdays and they walked away. Macenzi turned and bumped into me.