Charlotte - Female - Mid 20s
I'm stood at the front of the class and I feel like I'm drowning. I'm staring out at them, and I'm thinking who the fuck are you lot anyway? I look at them, but I can't see children, I can just see the colour of their jumpers, smudges where their faces should be.
Behind me, today's date is written on the board. I'm trying to pretend I don't know what it means.
It's hot and the classroom stinks, and the clock's broken and the work stuck up on the walls is old and the corners are coming away and the kids are screaming.
I'm trying to remember why I wanted to do this in the first place. You can't inspire minds on a timetable like this.
I think I'm miserable, Tony.
I mean, I stand in the staffroom in between classes and smile along with the others, but they're all so bitter, Tony. They're all so fuckin' hateful. Thirty years in the job, and they hate everything about it, but it's too late for them to get a new job and I'm pretty sure that secretly they hope the kids'll come to nothing. I mean it. You should hear the way they talk about them. No wonder the kids are killing each other over postcodes, or getting sick at the thought of not being famous.
The classroom's hot, and I'm staring at the kids, and I'm remembering us lot when we was at school – moving through the corridors like we was the fuckin' Roman empire. I'm remembering how it felt to be fifteen, us lot, in aparty, feeling like the world was ours, like we fuckin' owned it. I'm remembering how we cared about each other, how we got in fights for each other and robbed Tescos and built fires and got off our faces, it was exciting, wasn't it? It felt real.
What even happened to us? We go parties now, and we've got nothing to say to each other 'til we're fucked. And even then. We spend hours talking about parties from before, things that happened to us once, we spend life retelling life and it's pointless and boring.
And so, I'm staring out at the kids, watching them slouching in their chairs and playing with their phones and suddenly I'm remembering the other day, sunlight through the window of a hot train, I'm sat there, heading into town, and there's a group of ten or fifteen boys on some kind of field trip with their teacher, and they're wearing nice uniforms, they must have been from a private school or something. I mean, I listened to them talking to each other and I wanted to cry, coz these were young men with beautiful voices and healthy hair and good posture, talking to each other in perfect English, and helping each other with equations and fuckin' algebra and asking each other questions about how to say this or that particular thing in French, and it didn't seem fair. I thought of the kids here, in my class, with their squinty eyes and bad skin, mouths full of swear words and silence, and it didn't seem fair. And I'm stood there and I feel like bursting into tears and telling them all to run out on the streets and smash windows or something, do something. I want to tell them they're perfect and they're strong and tell them to go out and live every minute of their lives from their guts, to go after what they want, to own this fuckin' terrible city and get all they can out of life. But I don't say anything do I? I mean, what could I say?
I say nothing. I just stand there and listen to them telling each other to fuck off, I stare at the broken clock, the work peeling off the walls, and I know this is the last time I'll stand here in front of them, the last time. And I'm staring at them, wondering what they'll be like ten years from now. And then, suddenly, I'm thinking of Danny. I'm thinking of last night. It was perfect. But then I woke up and I looked at him, and I thought about the future. Six months down the line, a year maybe, two. I'll be distant, worn out by him, and he'll be pretending nothing's changed, out of pride he'll put his doubts away, convince himself to be this man he tells me only I can make him, this better man he talks about. But really, we'll be sick of each other, we'll be stifled and clinging to each other as tight as we can to keep ourselves from accepting there's nothing you can give a person that don't take half of them away. I can see myself, eating alone at the kitchen table, wondering where he is, the nagging girlfriend, uptight and unreasonable, his laughter in the pub, shrugging it off, me, sat there, feeling so self-righteous that even when he does come home I can't show him that deep down I'm really fuckin happy to see him. And then the moody silences, and off to bed, and strange, private dreams, and waking up to the alarm going and kissing him goodbye without smiling and on and on until everything I want for myself is forgotten, Even if it feels good now, it'll end in the same grey routine, the cozy choking afternoons. The unsaid words getting heavier and heavier 'til we don't even fight out loud anymore.
And so here I am, in front of the class, and the classroom's hot and I feel like I'm drowning and I walk out of the classroom. I open the door and walk out of the classroom. And the kids are shouting after me, but I ignore them. I walk down the corridor, I turn left, I walk down the stairs, kids everywhere, I swim through them, turn left again, the doors. I walk through the doors. I'm in the air. I'm outside. It's raining gently. It's good. I'm walking to the bus stop. I'm leaving. I'm making a decision. I'm changing things. This is it.
And then I'm coming in here and I'm ordering a drink for me and one for you, Tony, and I'm carrying them over to the table in the corner, and I'm staring at the pint and the empty chair and I'm trying to remember the first time they served us in here. I'm taking a sip of my drink, and then I'm taking a sip of your drink. And I'm remembering your face, and I'm smiling to myself. It's the weekend, Tony, the first weekend of the rest of my life.
