It's Only Temporary (14 page)

Howdy Marcus,

Great stuff! I have put it to the board and they have asked me to forward your CV. I will do this pronto, once this is done they will either invite you or not for an interview, but if they follow my recommendation there will be no problems and they always follow my recommendations!

Hang in there partner, I will be in touch real soon.

Hank

Yes! Essentially this was my back up plan. I still fully anticipated further contacts to come from other institutions as I reasoned that a lot of key people would be on their summer vacation and I just needed to be patient.  This however was my “banker” as they say, if I could secure this position I could start again and maybe move onto bigger and better things later. At the very least I could leave
Henrietta Street.

Following the break I re-entered the class room and Sam was still sitting at his desk but had a piece of paper in front of him. Jade and Kurt were standing next to him and as I approached Jade gave him a tap on the shoulder and made a gesture that indicated he should proceed. I did not know what he was supposed to proceed with and seemingly neither did Sam as he did not move.

‘Prof, Sam’s got something to tell ya. Ain’t ya Sam?’ Kurt said nudging him in the back.

‘C’mon man!’ Jade said starting to sound exasperated.

Sam picked up the piece of paper and held it out to me at the same time as ostensibly having his attention fixed on the wall on the opposite side of the room.

‘Go on!’ Kurt demanded sounding a little aggressive now.

‘Alright!’ Sam snapped. ‘I am crap at this stuff,’ he said to me. ‘But they helped me do this,’ he waved the paper at me and gestured his head towards the other two.

I took the paper, ‘Helped?’ This was a statement of surprise but seemed to be taken as an accusation.

‘It’s his words Prof,’ Jade said. ‘We just helped him put them on the paper, that’s all.’

‘No, I know. That’s fine, I am really pleased, with all three of you,’ I said. ‘What we do next Sam is go through it and pick out….one mistake,’ even with a cursory glance I could tell the written work was littered with errors. ‘Just one and then next time you practice getting that bit right and we keep going until you can write this out without errors.’

‘I ain’t doing no exam.’

‘That’s ok, no exam.’

At that point the rest of the group returned and I allowed them to watch the remainder of the film as I went through their work.

During the afternoon I spent some time with each learner identifying what I hoped they could correct next time. In some cases it was basic grammar or spelling but in others it was clear that this was not the case.

Jade had an excellent grasp of spelling and punctuation; we agreed that she could benefit from expanding her vocabulary by searching for different words that could be more suitably used in getting her point across. Kurt simply needed to not write in staccato, he had a tendency to use very short sentences, replacing the full stops with comma’s was his task.

We ended by agreeing to repeat the exercise with the next film the following
Friday, I went home feeling extremely enthusiastic about teaching the group. To the extent where yet again I forgot to check my emails, oh well they will still be there in the morning, I told myself.

Chapter 11.

Although my group were not in during Wednesday and Thursday, I still attended the centre in order to avail myself of Yu’s cooking. I also managed to meet some of the volunteers.

‘So you got a partner or are you single then?’ Paul asked, Paul was the only other male volunteer and was in his late twenties; the other two were “the girls” Jo and Izzy who were both nineteen.

‘Yes,’ not that it’s any of your business I felt like adding.

‘Which one?’

‘The second,’ he was already irritating me. I had only come into the kitchen for a cup of tea and some time to reflect. I had checked my emails this morning but there was nothing new, I had also had breakfast. With Kurt and the rest of the group absent until Friday I had two whole days which really I simply planned to coast through.

I was trying to reconcile how I would approach the situation with Hank once  a better offer arrived, timing was important as it would be easy to besmirch my reputation. Once I had accepted a post I was really committed to it or I would risk becoming an academic pariah. Paul however seemed intent on preventing me from completing my thoughts.

‘We are going clubbing Saturday night.’

‘Really?’ that statement was of absolutely no interest to me what so ever. I was on the brink of telling him that his incessant wittering was distracting those of us, namely me, who had evolved beyond the inane. I was just about to make this point when Stacy walked in, Paul was held in high regard by Stacy, probably because as a volunteer he was free I assumed. It certainly was not for his sparkling wit; as a result I decided to keep quiet.

‘That’s right innit boss?’ he said to her.

‘What’s that?’

‘Going clubbing Saturday. Us lot.’

To my astonishment Stacy seemed to be excited about this prospect, ‘Oh yeah I can’t wait,’ she said as she did a shimmy to simulate dancing.

‘You should come too,’ Paul suggested.

Spend a few hours of my life in a dark, sweaty, noisy hell hole with a bunch of gyrating hormonal teenagers or in some cases want to be teenagers. I didn’t think so.

‘Yeah Marcus, it would do you good!’ Stacy declared.

‘In what way?’ I asked incredulous that she was agreeing with the intellectually defunct Paul.

‘Well you could let off some
steam; celebrate the end of your first week. You might even pull!’ she said raising her eye brows at me.

‘Pull? Pull what?’

Paul for some bizarre reason found my perfectly sensible question hysterical and doubled over laughing whilst slapping the table with his hand, even Stacy was smiling. Had I entered the low intelligence zone somehow?

‘I mean meet someone.’

‘Well of course, you couldn’t fail to, it will undoubtedly be packed.’

‘Nooo dummy.
Someone!
Y’know? Someone special. A girl maybe, a possible girlfriend. Lord knows you need one!’

Paul also found this comment side splittingly funny and seemed thankfully to be incapable of speech as a result. I was concerned at one point that he was unable to breath and may be at risk of asphyxiation but alas this was not the case.

‘Why do you say that?’

‘Ok, when was your last relationship?’

‘Well three years ago, not that it’s anything to do with you.’

‘Alright don’t get prickly! That’s a long time to be on your own, I know.’

The emphasis she put on the last two words surprised me considering she was in a relationship with the child carer Max. My indignation was starting to rise so I foolishly attempted to defend myself.

‘I also had a fling!’

‘Really?’ asked Paul. ‘C’mon tell us all.’

‘It was with the Bursar.’

Stacy spluttered into her tea, ‘But you told me the bursar is a bloke!’

‘So?’ challenged Paul.

‘Marcus isn’t gay. Are you?’

Give me strength! Were we back to that again?

‘No I am not. The current Bursar is male, but the one I am referring to was most definitely female. My point is I don’t need to attend a cattle market to “meet someone” as you put it.’

‘Well come anyway, it will be a laugh,’ Stacy said.

‘I can’t afford it,’ I replied honestly.

‘Oh, of course…’ she looked embarrassed. Paul began to speak but Stacy silenced him with a stern look.

Thankfully the subject seemed to then be forgotten and I spent the rest of the day assisting Dan with his paintings.

‘There’s a phone call for you,’ Stacy told me.

‘A phone call here?’ how could that be, for a moment I considered it might be Hank ringing to get in fast and secure my services before another institute could.

‘
Someone called Trudy.’

‘Hello?’

‘Mark?’

Here we go
again; I could not be bothered to contradict her.

‘Yes.’

‘Your stuff.’

I immediately thought back to my last meeting with her and how I had felt like we were speaking different languages, it seemed best to try and take charge of this conversation so I would at least have a chance of understanding of what she was talking about.

‘You mean my possessions that are still stored in boxes at Luci?’

‘Yeah.’

A long pause which she obviously was not going to fill.

‘What about them Trudy?’

‘I need em out.’

‘Pardon?’

‘You have to move em.’

Move them where? Did she want to relocate the boxes to another part of the campus? ‘Where to Trudy?’ I asked.

‘Don’t know, don’t care. I need that cupboard back.’

‘Oh I see. Well surely if you ask the porters they can find somewhere else more suitable?’

‘Why?’

Talking to her on the phone was harder than face to face it seemed.

‘Well they could move them for you?’

‘To where?’

‘That would be why you would need to ask them. They will know the best place.’

‘Listen Mark, you’re not getting it. They need to be moved.’

‘Yes, I did actually get that believe it or not.’

‘Off site.’

Those two words hit me like a bombshell. Off site? Where on earth was I going to put everything? I could put them in my room, which would be ok as long as I didn’t need to use the space to actually live there as well.

‘Why Trudy? You said you would keep them for me until I was sorted out!’

‘I have.’

‘It’s been one week!’

‘Yeah I know but you left me your address so I know you have somewhere. By the way a phone number would have been useful! I had to ring Sharon, then some plonker called Jon to get this number. I am busy y’know?’

Busy making life impossible for me again I thought.

‘Trudy I have nowhere to put them, my place is tiny.’

‘Have you tried Ebay?’

‘Where?’

‘Ebay, sell some of it off.’

Sell? I was not likely to sell the culmination of my entire career’s worth of books and memorabilia. Let alone my records some of which were quite rare.

‘Listen Trudy, can’t you just hold on to them for a little bit. Until I can sort something out?’

‘Sure.’

At last!

‘You can have until Saturday.’

‘But today is Wednesday!’

‘I know that.’

‘What if I can’t do it by then?’

‘Well they will end up in the skip I assume. Robert is insisting that this happen as fast as possible.’

Robert? That evil, repugnant toad.

‘I see, well you can tell Robert from me…’

‘Don’t finis
h that sentence Mark,’ Trudy warned. ‘Robert has left you two messages for me to pass on.’

I waited.

‘First he has had a reference request from somewhere in America. He wants me to tell you that despite his feelings about what you teach he is a professional and you have a good record so he will reflect that in what he writes. I assume you don’t want me to tell him whatever it was you were about to say?

‘No,’ I said. ‘What’s the second message?’

‘Oh yeah. Stay out of our library!’

I hung up the phone and looked around the office; this was an added complication that I did not need.  It dawned on me that in all the excitement about the possibility of going to
America I had not given my stored belongings a second thought. How on earth would I get them across the Atlantic? This would need to be negotiated with Hank but put me at a slight disadvantage; I wanted employing me to be as easy as possible for him. At least the reference would not be an issue, another aspect I had overlooked.

Having checked my emails again and finding nothing new I returned to the kitchen, thankfully Paul was not there and I sat down with yet another cup of tea. It was
four pm and I had to think fast, Stacy joined me and sat down, ‘What’s up?’

I explained the situation to her as she drank her tea, she nodded and frowned in the appropriate places before she said, ‘Ok, well I think I can help.’

‘Really?’ I had not been expecting that as a response.

‘Yeah. Why don’t you put it all upstairs?’ she said raising her eyes to the ceiling. I had forgotten about the flat that was used for storage upstairs.