Journey to the Sea Read online

  As she thought of the new boy, Miss Dunn wondered what home he came from. He looked clean enough – not the stained cardigan, grubby jeans and unwashed hair of the neglected child, but who would send a child to school looking like he did?

  Miss Dunn had taught deprived children on leaving college; grubby little scraps from homes where there was precious little self-esteem and few expectations and, of course, no books save perhaps for the big yellow ones under the telephone. Theirs was a background of poverty, unemployment, family difficulties, absentee father, limited aspirations, few opportunities to better themselves and very often verbal and physical abuse. She could tell by their sallow complexions that their diet would be largely chips and crisps and fast food and that they would be up most of the night watching some unsuitable television programme. She had seen it many times before. Those children hadn’t much of a chance but they were so appreciative, so grateful to have someone take an interest in them, take the time to listen to them. They had cried when she left.

  The children who attended St Mary’s had every chance but there was precious little gratitude. They came from affluent homes with parents who had high aspirations – sometimes unrealistically high. They all lived in large detached houses with their own bedrooms, they had holidays abroad, their own computers and expensive bicycles. The new boy, this strange-coloured creature, just would not fit in. He was like some exotic bird caught in a flock of sparrows.

  She could tell, of course, by the look on the young head teacher’s face that the boy would probably spell trouble. No doubt the child’s record from his previous school had been scrutinised, the catalogue of misbehaviour duly noted. Miss Dunn knew that the most well-adjusted and confident child would find it difficult starting a new school mid-term. It was never easy for the new pupil settling in, making friends, getting used to an unfamiliar environment, different routines and strange faces. For a child like this – so very different from his peers – it would be a nightmare. Oh yes, thought Miss Dunn to herself, it would prove very difficult.

  And, of course, he would have special needs. There was no question of that. His reading would be well below standard, his writing weak and his number work poor. Miss Dunn thought of the disproportionate amount of time she would have to spend with the child to get him up to scratch. His inability to get on with the other children, his academic weakness and his lack of interest would manifest themselves in anti-social behaviour: angry confrontations, temper tantrums, truculence, rudeness, attention-seeking. She had seen it before.

  Miss Dunn shook her head and looked down at the exercise book before her on the desk. The child’s description she was marking, like all the rest she had read through that morning, was neat enough, the spellings were good and the punctuation sound, but it was tiresome in its predictability and banality. ‘The sea was a lovely blue colour. Big waves rolled up the beach and covered the yellow sand. There were big cliffs and lots of rocks . . .’ She gave a great heaving sigh.

  What had been the point, she thought, of spending all Sunday evening preparing a lesson that had clearly had so little effect? What had been the point of trying to fill the children with the same sense of awe and wonder as she felt whenever she saw the ocean? Better perhaps to have done what Mrs Waterhouse usually did with her class: give them a worksheet. ‘It saves all that wretched preparation,’ her colleague had told her casually. ‘It occupies them, keeps them quiet and saves on the marking.’

  Miss Dunn knew there was more to teaching than that. She had brought into school a selection of strangely shaped shells, fronds of dried seaweed, slivers of shiny jet, a variety of coloured pebbles, small jags of rock, fragments of smooth slate and polished amber, and arranged them on a table beside jars full of different-coloured sands. She had talked about her childhood and the walks with her father along the cliffs at Whitby. They would brave the cold wind and, hair stiff with salt, walk the clifftop path, looking down on the vast ocean beneath them, the forests of white crests, the grey waves curling and arching, the seaweed glittering wet. She had gathered the children around her and read a favourite poem: ‘Sea Fever’ by John Masefield.

  I must go down to the sea again, to the lonely sea and the sky,

  And all I ask is a tall ship and a star to steer her by,

  And the wheel’s kick and the wind’s song and the white sail’s shaking,

  And a grey mist on the sea’s face and the grey dawn breaking.

  And all she got was: ‘The sea was a lovely blue colour. Big waves rolled up the beach and covered the yellow sand. There were big cliffs and lots of rocks.’

  Perhaps, thought Miss Dunn, it was time for her to go, to leave teaching. She was nearing sixty and could retire comfortably with her pension and lump sum. She might join a night class, spend more time in the garden and take up golf. Mrs Waterhouse, teacher of the eleven-year-olds, who sat in the corner of the staffroom clacking away with her knitting needles like Madame Defarge, spent most of her time regaling anyone willing enough to listen with how she was looking forward to finishing. ‘I’ll be glad to get out,’ was her recurrent announcement. ‘If I had my chance over again, click clack, I would never go in for teaching, click clack. I’ve put my own children off, I can tell you that, click clack. Standards have plummeted, click clack, children are so badly behaved these days, click clack, parents are a pain in the neck, click clack, and all this bloody paperwork, click clack!’

  Miss Dunn had to admit that her colleague had a point. It was tough going these days. Children were harder to handle, parents were becoming increasingly demanding and difficult, and the government buried teachers in a snowstorm of paper. Teaching was very different these days from when she started.

  Miss Dunn had always considered herself to be a good teacher. She prepared her lessons meticulously, marked the books, mounted colourful displays, took children on school trips to the castle, the canal and the museum. She produced the nativity play each Christmas and coached the school choir. She knew that she would never win a ‘Teacher of the Year’ award but she was dedicated and hardworking and gave the children the best she could give. But her best was not good enough for the fat-faced school inspector, grinning like an overfed frog, who waddled into her classroom one morning clutching a clipboard like some game-show host. He judged her lessons to be ‘satisfactory’. Thirty-five years in the classroom and she is given the accolade of ‘satisfactory’.

  Then the young head teacher (‘call me Gavin’) arrived, bubbling with enthusiasm, bringing with him a bandwagon crammed full of every educational initiative and strategy that was doing the rounds and a new language full of jargon, psychobabble and gobbledegook. She had to smile. She could see the young head teacher describing the ‘new addition’ on the computer record: ‘Kyle is a behaviourally challenged student from a multi-delinquent family with siblings high on the incarceration index.’

  Soon after his arrival, the young head teacher had observed some lessons, ‘in a bid to get to know all my staff’. At her first appraisal meeting he had informed her (‘Please don’t take this the wrong way, Miss Dunn, I’m just trying to be constructive’) that she lacked a certain enthusiasm, the verve and vibrancy so necessary in the good teacher, that she did not ‘sparkle’ in the lessons he had observed. She told the young head teacher that she wasn’t some sort of Christmas-tree fairy; she was a teacher with an unblemished record and over thirty years’ experience. He had smiled in that patronising way of his and told her he wanted all the teachers at St Mary’s to ‘come aboard’, ‘think outside the box’, become ‘team players’, ‘get up to speed’. She had told him it was difficult to change at her time of life, ‘for a leopard to change its spots’, ‘to put old wine in new bottles’. He informed her that they were ‘not speaking the same language’. It was the first occasion she had agreed with him.

  The bell rang shrilly and her reverie ended abruptly. A moment later the children burst through the door chattering excitedly.

  ‘Quietly, quietly, children,’ sa
id Miss Dunn, clapping her hands. Kyle arrived by himself a moment later. He sauntered in with his hands behind his back. All eyes turned in his direction. There were whispers and smirks and a few giggles but he seemed oblivious and walked to the front of the classroom.

  ‘That’s right, come along in, Kyle,’ said the teacher. ‘You can sit down at the front.’

  ‘Thanks,’ he said, walking towards her with what she thought was something of a swagger.

  The boy sat on the chair directly in front of her, rested his hands on the table and looked around him with wide inquisitive eyes.

  ‘Now, children, look this way please,’ instructed Miss Dunn in her teacher’s voice. ‘This is Kyle and he will be joining our class. I want you all to make him feel at home and help him to settle in.’ She knew it was an idle request. None of these children would have anything to do with him. ‘It must be rather frightening for someone to join a new school so I expect you all to be friendly and helpful.’ The boy did not look at all frightened, she thought, catching sight of his serious face. Then she added, ‘And if I hear of anyone being unkind in any way, then they will have me to answer to.’

  When the children had settled down to their silent reading, Miss Dunn sat next to the boy and explained what they had been doing in the previous lesson. She noticed the fierce concentration on his face as he listened to her and the brightness of his large round eyes. There was a faint but not unpleasant smell of earth and leaves.

  ‘We are writing a description of the sea,’ she said softly, bending closer towards him. ‘Here’s a copy of the poem I’ve read to the class.’ The boy scrutinised the sheet of paper like an accountant undertaking an audit. ‘Don’t worry if you find the poem a little difficult.’

  ‘No, it’s fine,’ he said. ‘No problem. I love the sea.’

  ‘And you might like to look at some of the things on the table, the shells and pebbles, to give you some ideas.’

  ‘Very good,’ said the boy, fingering a shiny piece of jet.

  ‘I’ve got quite a collection of shells at home and dried starfish and shiny pebbles. It’s amazing what the sea throws up.’

  ‘And try to think of the last time you were at the seaside and describe it,’ Miss Dunn continued. ‘Imagine you are on a beach—’

  ‘Oh, I’ve been on quite a few beaches in my time,’ the boy told her. ‘Me and my father have camped on beaches. He says there’s nothing like it, falling asleep under the stars with the sound of the sea in your ears and waking to the screeching of the gulls and the salty smell in the air. Sometimes on really dark nights, he lights a fire and reads stories.’ The child suddenly became quite animated. ‘He’s got quite a lot of books, you know, my father. He calls himself a bibliomaniac. He gets them second-hand from the market or from charity shops. They never cost much, well, not the ones with the ripped pages and covers missing. Hornblower’s my favourite. Moonfleet, that’s another. Treasure Island. I like listening to him read. I get away from things when I read.’

  ‘And do you think you can manage to write a description for me?’ asked the teacher.

  ‘I’d enjoy that,’ he said. ‘The thing about the sea is that it changes. One minute calm and quiet, the next mountainous waves crashing on the cliffs. My father says it’s like an untamed monster.’

  ‘Good,’ said the teacher, quite taken aback by the child’s response.

  Miss Dunn was taken aback again during the morning break. She had watched the boy in the lesson write slowly and with deliberation, his tongue sticking from the corner of his mouth. He occasionally gazed out of the classroom window, as if deep in thought; at other times he stared at the floor or closed his eyes as if in prayer. When the bell rang, the boy presented her with a neatly written and vivid description of crumbling cliffs, the cold grey endless sand and the foam flying free.

  He couldn’t have written this, she told herself. No child of ten could compose such a piece of writing. But she soon discovered that he had, and for the remainder of the week the boy continued to produce written work of such quality that Miss Dunn was spellbound.

  ‘You have a real gift for writing, Kyle,’ Miss Dunn told the boy one lunchtime. She found him in the school library poring over a book. ‘I don’t think I’ve come across anyone of your age who uses words with such richness and vitality.’

  ‘Thank you,’ he said smiling. ‘I like words, Miss Dunn.’

  ‘And how are you settling in?’ asked the teacher.

  The boy thought for a moment and a small smile came to his lips. ‘I don’t really settle in to any school. I’ve been to so many I think it best not to make friends and get used to things. My father doesn’t like to stay too long in one place.’

  ‘So you’ll be moving on?’ asked the teacher.

  ‘I guess so,’ he said. ‘One of these fine days.’

  ‘And how is the new boy faring?’ the new head teacher asked Miss Dunn the following week. It was morning break and he was pinning yet another government directive on the staffroom noticeboard.

  ‘Very well,’ she replied simply. She kept her exchanges with the new head teacher as brief as possible.

  ‘He needs a good wash, from what I’ve seen of him,’ Mrs Waterhouse observed from the corner of the staffroom, producing her knitting needles. ‘And whatever is he wearing? He’s like a walking jumble sale. I wasn’t aware the school rule on uniform had been relaxed.’

  ‘I have to disagree with you there, Doris,’ said Miss Dunn. ‘He’s a very clean boy and, what’s more, he’s highly intelligent and very well behaved.’

  ‘The school rule on uniform has most certainly not been relaxed,’ said the new head teacher, clearly stung by his colleague’s comment. ‘I have written to his father on two occasions but received no reply.’

  ‘His father’s not into uniforms,’ Miss Dunn told him mischievously, echoing the boy’s own response.

  ‘Well, I am,’ said the new head teacher, drawing pin poised. ‘I predicted that he would be something of a problem.’

  ‘He isn’t,’ replied Miss Dunn.

  ‘I would never have guessed from the look of him, click clack,’ said Mrs Waterhouse. ‘He looks a very odd child, quite bizarre, I should say.’

  ‘Appearances can be deceptive, Doris,’ said Miss Dunn.

  ‘He doesn’t seem to mix,’ said the new head teacher. ‘I was monitoring him from my window at afternoon break yesterday. He was sitting on the wall by himself with a book. Perhaps I ought to get the educational psychologist to have a word with him.’

  Perhaps you ought to leave him alone, Miss Dunn thought to herself. ‘Some people do enjoy their own company,’ she told him. ‘And some people do like to read. He seems happy enough.’

  ‘Is he bullied?’ asked the new head teacher. ‘Loners like him and children who are perceived to be different tend to get bullied.’

  ‘No, he isn’t bullied,’ said Miss Dunn.

  ‘One can’t be too sure,’ said the new head teacher.

  ‘I am,’ said Miss Dunn.

  ‘What’s his background, click clack,’ asked Mrs Waterhouse. ‘Looks like a little gypsy to me.’

  ‘We don’t say “gypsy” any more, Mrs Waterhouse,’ the new head teacher told her pompously. ‘The term we now use is “traveller”.’

  ‘Well, I would watch your purse, Dorothy, if I were you, click, clack,’ Mrs Waterhouse said.

  ‘I would be grateful, Miss Dunn,’ said the new head teacher, ‘if you speak to him about the uniform. We can’t have him coming to school dressed like that, and I think you also need to have a word about the length of his hair and those sandals. Quite inappropriate for St Mary’s.’

  ‘I thought this was a church school,’ said Miss Dunn.

  ‘It is a church school,’ replied the new head teacher.

  ‘Well, long hair and sandals were good enough for Jesus,’ she told him before leaving the staffroom.

  The following Saturday afternoon as she was making her way through the small arcade in
the centre of the town, Miss Dunn came upon Kyle. He was holding out the lid of a biscuit tin as shoppers passed by, begging for change, but his eyes were set firmly on a man trying to get a tune out of a fiddle and dancing, dancing very badly. He was a tall striking-looking individual with long blonde hair tied back in a ponytail and bright but shabby clothes. His boots clattered as he brought them down heavily on the pavement. Miss Dunn watched, fascinated. When the man stopped and scooped up the few coppers in the tin lid, she approached.

  ‘Hello, Kyle,’ she said.

  If he was embarrassed, he didn’t show it. ‘Hello, Miss,’ he replied.

  The tall individual swivelled around.

  ‘This is my teacher.’

  ‘Hello,’ said Miss Dunn pleasantly.

  ‘How do you do,’ replied the man, and stared at her with eyes as bright and as blue as a summer sky.

  ‘My father’s a dancer and a fiddle player,’ said the boy proudly. ‘He’s a street entertainer.’

  ‘So I see.’

  ‘I hope Kyle is not giving you any trouble,’ said the boy’s father.

  ‘Not at all,’ replied Miss Dunn. ‘In fact, it’s been a pleasure to teach him.’

  ‘Good,’ said the man, smiling and putting a hand on his son’s shoulder. ‘He’s a good boy.’

  ‘I would like to talk to you about Kyle,’ said Miss Dunn, as the man began to put the old violin in a battered case.

  ‘If it’s about the uniform, you’re wasting your time. I dislike any kind of uniform. We are all different, Miss Dunn.’

  ‘Actually, it’s not about the uniform,’ said the teacher. ‘I would like to discuss Kyle’s work. Perhaps you might like to call into school some time.’