Love Lessons Read online

  Love Lessons

  David Belbin

  East Lane Books

  For Julia

  Love Lessons

  By David Belbin

  First published by Scholastic Press in 1998

  Reissued by Five Leaves Publications in 2009

  This ebook edition published by East Lane Books in 2013

  Copyright © David Belbin 1998/2009/2013

  Cover Design © Scholastic Ltd.

  ISBN 978 1 909509 05 4

  Table of Contents

  Prologue

  Part One

  Part Two

  Part Three

  Epilogue

  Afterword: A Brief History of Love Lessons

  Afterword to the 2013 edition

  Prologue

  It happened in October, two days before the half-term break. School was about to finish for the day and the English lesson was winding down. The teacher, Mr Scott, was the only one who Rachel really liked at Stonywood. He told stories and somehow had the trick of teaching you things without you realizing.

  “Coming back to the mock exams...”

  Behind Rachel, Kate Duerden and Lisa Sharpe were discussing Mr Hansen, the new maths teacher.

  “I caught him looking at me today,” Kate whispered, dreamily.

  “He’s meant to look at you,” Lisa said, sounding bored. “That’s his job.”

  “He’s not paid to look at me the way he looked at me today,” Kate retorted. “You know what else he did? As I was leaving, he winked at me.”

  “Dream on,” Lisa told her. “It was probably a facial twitch.”

  “Coming back to the mock exams...” Mr Scott repeated, then saw where the noise was coming from. “If I could have your attention, ladies. There are two minutes of the lesson left and I have a little information of some value to impart...”

  Rachel liked the deliberately old-fashioned way he talked sometimes, taking the mickey out of himself. English was her best subject, the only class where she didn’t spend half her time daydreaming. It was also the only class where she was in the same group as her best friend, Becky.

  Mr Scott coughed, loudly. Rachel focused a serious face on him. Behind her, Kate stopped discussing the new maths teacher. Mr Scott, his face slightly red, said, “Thank you,” then took a deep breath. “Now then, as you know, the literature exam in December consists of three questions: one on the poetry anthology, one on the novel, and one on the play.”

  “But we haven’t started the play yet!” complained Nick Cowan, who sat in the front row.

  “Precisely,” said Mr Scott, impatiently. “Which is why, in order to make the exam as realistic as possible ... as realistic...”

  He paused, and took another breath. “In order to make the exam as realistic as possible, you will have to answer two questions on one text and ...”

  He stopped again. His face, Rachel saw, had become very flushed. The class was silent. Becky, her voice embarrassed but concerned, called out, “Are you all right, sir?”

  The teacher clearly wasn’t all right. He clutched his chest and began to sway, falling against Nick Cowan’s desk. The class watched in shocked silence as Mr Scott’s limp body hit the floor.

  Then there was pandemonium.

  Part One

  One

  “What happened next?” Rachel’s mum asked.

  “Becky went over to him, loosened his tie and all that. I ran for the nurse. It was terrible. Just as I left the room, the bell went for the end of school, so I had to push my way through all these kids in the corridor. I was sure he’d be dead by the time I got back.”

  “And was he?”

  Rachel shook her head. “When I got to the office, the nurse wasn’t there. She was visiting a primary school or something. So the office called an ambulance and the Head ran back to the classroom with me. It was weird. Half the class had left and everybody else was just sitting there, looking petrified. Mr Scott was still unconscious on the floor. Becky said she thought he was still breathing. The Head told everyone to go, so we left. The ambulance arrived as we got out of school.”

  Rachel had been crying. Mum gave her another tissue. “It sounds like you behaved very sensibly. I’ll give Janet a ring in a few minutes, find out how Colin is. You go and lie down. You’ve had a shock. I’ll come up and tell you as soon as I find anything out.”

  “OK.”

  Rachel hugged Mum, then went upstairs to her bedroom. Mum was one of the parent-governors at Stonywood Comp. That was why the Head was “Janet” and Mr Scott, “Colin”. Sometimes this embarrassed Rachel. Today, though, she was glad of it.

  In the room, Rachel kicked off her shoes and got into bed, fully clothed. Then, too hot, she threw the duvet covers off and stared at the pale pink ceiling of her room. She had chosen the colour herself two years earlier. Then, it felt fresh and feminine. Now, she didn’t like it. Sometimes she wished her room was painted black, like a cave. She wanted it to be a dark, secret place where she could hide from the world and be herself. But her room was pink.

  Footsteps sounded on the stairs. Mum knocked on the door.

  “I’m awake.”

  Mum came in, still wearing the grey skirt and matronly knitted top she’d gone to work in that morning. Mum was a secretary at a solicitor’s. Thirty-six years of age, she looked older. Rachel blamed this on the fact that she’d spent the last ten years bringing up a child on her own. Mum sat on the edge of the bed. Her face told Rachel all she needed to know.

  Mum held Rachel’s hand. “Colin had a second heart attack on the way to the hospital, love. There was nothing they could do to save him.”

  Rachel hugged her mother. “Why?” she asked her. “Why?”

  But, for the first time Rachel could remember, Mum had no answers.

  Two

  Rachel felt out of place at Mr Scott’s funeral. She’d come with Mum, who was a friend of the teacher’s wife. It was during half-term and she was the only kid there. That was, unless you counted the teacher’s teenage children, silent as statues on the front row. But Rachel would have felt worse if she hadn’t come. Mr Scott had taught her for three of the previous four years. He knew that Rachel wanted to act and, last year, got her an audition for the drama workshop run by Central TV. Rachel didn’t get in, but she’d never have had the chance if it weren’t for Colin Scott. Sometimes, Rachel had wished that the teacher were her father, rather than the slick, self-centred man she saw every other weekend.

  “Sudden deaths are always the hardest to bear,” said the vicar. “Colin Scott was taken from us in the prime of his life, depriving Lucy, Martin and Sally of a dearly beloved father and leaving Tina to face life without her devoted husband. He was a dedicated man - to his family, and to his job. Perhaps it can be said he worked harder than was good for him, never refusing tasks, no matter how big or small …”

  Across the aisle, Rachel thought she saw Ms Howard, the head of English, bristle. The eulogy moved on to the mysteriousness of God’s ways. Rachel let the vicar’s clichés wash over her. Minutes later, the casket slid silently behind a red, velvet curtain and Rachel burst into tears.

  Outside, afterwards, Rachel was surprised to find that Colin Scott had been forty-four, only five years older than her own father. She waited for Mum to drive her home. The sun was brighter than it had any cause to be. Leaves on the trees were turning from brown to gold, then falling softly on to the ground. This was the first time that someone close to Rachel had died. She didn’t know how to deal with it.

  Rachel went over to see if she could hurry Mum up. She was talking to Ms Howard, a stuffy, ambitious woman who Rachel didn’t like. The vicar had been right about Mr Scott being pushed too hard. Rachel had seen the way Ms Howard acted during the school play last year, gettin
g him to do most of the work while she took most of the credit. Now, she was embarrassed to hear Mum say, “I know this isn’t really the place to ask, but I’m worried about Rachel’s English. It’s her best subject and, with Colin gone, will you be able to take over the group?”

  “I’m afraid not,” Ms Howard said. “I have a top group in the other half year. The timetables clash.”

  Rachel was relieved to hear that.

  “But we’re hoping to get someone in quickly. In fact, Janet Perry and I are interviewing a young man tomorrow. Just out of a teacher training course, but he’s got a first class honours degree.”

  “Sounds promising,” Mum said, then noticed her daughter listening.

  “Can we go?” Rachel asked, tersely.

  The two women broke apart guiltily, like schoolgirls caught talking in class. It was sick, Rachel thought. Mr Scott had been dead less than a week, and they were already appointing his replacement. Whatever he was like, Rachel knew that she would hate him.

  Three

  Mike woke early, the way he always did when he had an interview. He stared at the ceiling for an age, running over questions in his mind. At seven, he got out of bed quietly, in order not to wake Emma. His girlfriend was still a student, in the second year at Hallam University, and didn’t have a lecture until ten. Emma was lending him the car, which her parents had bought her when she passed her A-levels. Mike showered and trimmed his beard. He’d grown the beard for teaching practice to make him look older, more authoritative. It was a pain to keep up, but Emma thought it was cute, so the beard stayed.

  Mike shovelled down some cornflakes, then borrowed Emma’s new tape to play on the journey. He stepped over a crumpled NME, Emma’s Doc Marten’s and two pairs of torn jeans to get back to the bed. His girlfriend was still sleeping, her fine brown hair falling over the duvet. Mike kissed her neck, then left the flat quietly.

  Fifty minutes later he was in Nottingham. Stonywood was just off the ringroad, not far from the city centre. Mike got out and looked around. It was a crisp autumn day. Pale brown leaves drifted from a solitary tree on to the almost empty car park. Cotton-wool clouds floated across a paint-box blue sky. In its brochure, Stonywood school sounded super-modern — all information technology and courses geared to the individual student. Up close, its mix of redbrick and prefabricated buildings resembled nothing more than Mike’s teaching practice school in Sheffield. He felt comfortable.

  Jobs were tight this year. You’d have thought that, with a good degree and teaching qualification, he’d walk into one. But Mike had a shy side and often froze in interviews. He’d blown his last one in Worksop the week before. When the Head called him back afterwards, Mike assumed that he was going to be given the usual, useless pep talk. Instead, he was told about Stonywood, whose Headteacher had rung that afternoon, asking whether there was a good candidate left over from the interviews. They had a sudden vacancy.

  Mike had been applying for jobs within commuting distance of Sheffield, because of Emma. He’d only been applying for jobs at 11-18 schools, because he wanted sixth- form teaching. Stonywood had no sixth form. But a job was a job. Mike consulted Emma. To his surprise, she encouraged him to apply. Emma was fond of Sheffield, but, like Mike, was from Leicester. Nottingham was nearer home. Also, it was meant to be an exciting city to live in. If Mike got the job, they could move there after Emma finished her degree. But that was a long way off.

  Judith Howard showed him round. Parts of the school were shiny new, like its glossy brochure. The English rooms, however, were rather shabby. The displays were old- fashioned, and didn’t seem to have been changed recently. It looked like they needed some new blood. Mike did his best to ask intelligent questions. The head of English seemed suitably impressed.

  The Headteacher was a well-dressed, grey-haired woman in her late forties. “It’s a temporary contract,” Mrs Perry said, after a few, perfunctory questions, “for two-and-a-half terms. It’s too early to say if the contract will be renewable. Mr Scott had a year-eleven exam class, which is why we’re eager to appoint quickly. If we went through the usual channels, they wouldn’t have a teacher until January at the earliest. So, the question is, can you start on Monday?”

  Mike blinked. He couldn’t believe that, after six months and seventeen interviews, someone was finally offering him a job. “Er, yes, fine,” he said, in an off-hand voice.

  The Head reached over and shook his hand. The contract, he realized, was sealed.

  The next hour, when Judith Howard went over the timetable with him, passed in a daze. It was only when he was walking back to the car, with an armload of policy documents, textbooks and class readers, that Mike began to wonder what he was letting himself in for. But the doubts passed quickly. He stopped at an off licence on the way home to buy a bottle of sparkling wine.

  “That’s brilliant!” Emma said, hugging him.

  “I thought we’d get a takeaway to celebrate,” Mike said.

  Emma smiled, then pulled off his tie and began to undo the buttons of his shirt. “Forget the takeaway for now. Bring two glasses to the bedroom. I know a much better way to celebrate.”

  The new English teacher was tall and thin, with straight brown hair and a close-cut beard like Rachel’s dad used to wear. Rachel hated beards. Mr Steadman’s voice kept rising in an unnatural way - he was nervous, Rachel supposed - and he kept repeating everybody’s names in a desperate attempt to memorize them. He also made weak jokes.

  “So, the, er, poetry anthology you’ve been using is the, er, Language of Love. Not something I’ve come across before.” Pause. “The book, I mean.” No one laughed.

  “I’ll bet he’s a virgin,” Lisa Sharpe whispered, a row behind Rachel.

  Rachel grimaced. She didn’t like to think of teachers having sex lives. She felt sorry for this one. Some of the kids in the school would eat him alive. But this was a top group and - though few of the students would admit it - they were anxious to pass their exams. The class would give this Mr Steadman the benefit of the doubt. When he asked questions about what poems they’d already studied, people answered politely.

  “And which did you like best?”

  There was the first of many awkward silences. Rachel, who usually spoke a lot in English, remained silent. English lessons often relied on people joining in discussion. If Steadman wanted her contribution, he would have to earn it, the way Mr Scott had done.

  Rachel walked over to maths on her own. Becky was in a top group for maths, while Rachel was in a middle one. As she crossed the quad, Nick Cowan fell into step alongside her. Rachel quite liked Nick, though he could be a bit - what was the word? — earnest at times. He was in the same group as her for maths, as well as English.

  “What did you think of Steadman?” he asked.

  “Not a lot,” Rachel replied.

  “He seems a bit wet behind the ears,” Nick said.

  It was the sort of expression Rachel would’ve expected from her mother, not a sixteen-year-old boy.

  “Still,” Nick went on, “Scotty’s a hard act to follow, isn’t he? You have to feel a bit sorry for him.”

  “I guess,” Rachel muttered.

  In maths, Rachel usually sat with Carmen, whom she’d known since primary school. Carmen was off school today, so Rachel pointedly sat at a table where there was only one seat left. She had the feeling that Nick was meaning to ask her something else. Now he was forced to sit across the room, on his own.

  Mr Hansen came in. He was a slim, gentle-looking man with blond hair and blue eyes. Rachel could see why half the girls in her year fancied him. She wasn’t one of them. Rachel was embarrassed when girls like Lisa and Kate made eyes at the teacher. They were so obvious that, at first, the teacher didn’t know how to deal with them. Once he’d even blushed. He was used to it by now, though, and so should they be. Yet there was Lisa Sharpe, following him to the maths storeroom.

  “Let me help you, sir.”

  “It’s quite all right,” Hansen said, in
his soft, Scottish accent.

  What did Lisa think, that Hansen would suddenly succumb to temptation and ravish her while twenty-eight students waited for tracing paper and calculators?

  Hansen got the class to work in pairs. Rachel was sat at a table with four other people on it. Her usual partner being absent, she meant to work on her own, but the teacher wouldn’t let her get away with it.

  “Nick hasn’t got a partner,” he said. “Join him, would you?”

  Rachel thought about protesting, but couldn’t be so rude. Only immature girls like Lisa and Marie refused to work with boys.

  Nick was better than her at maths. They got the work done in next to no time. That meant he got the chance to ask her the question she’d avoided earlier.

  “Are you doing anything on Saturday night?”

  “I...” Never any good at lying, Rachel didn’t manage a reply.

  “I haven’t got it wrong, have I?” Nick stammered. “You aren’t going out with anyone at the moment, are you?”

  “No,” Rachel admitted. “I’m not.”

  She looked at Nick. He had thick, dark hair, deep eyes and a strong chin. If Rachel didn’t know him, she might find the boy attractive.

  But she did know him. She’d seen him around the school since she was eleven years old and had shared two classes with him for a year and a bit. She knew that he stammered when he was nervous, had once been bullied by Bez McCloud and had a crush on Becky back at the beginning of year ten. Nick used to be cheeky to teachers but since his voice broke, giving him a deep growl, he had become more serious. He could also, Rachel knew, be very persistent. Like now.

  “I was thinking we could go into town,” Nick said. “See a film. You can choose. No pressure.”