It's Only Temporary (8 page)

A short while later I heard what I assumed was Alfie making his inebriated way up the stairs, perhaps he was the architect of the noise from below my window?  For a moment I was anxious that he may elect to come and visit me. I breathed a sigh of relief when I heard him stagger past my door and onwards to his own flat.

Arriving at the centre the next morning I was greeted by Stacy. ‘Hi, how are you today?’ she asked with her trademark smile.

‘I’m fine thanks. You?’

‘Well I’m glad you came back!’ she laughed.

For some reason this brightened my spirits considerably, the fact that someone was glad to see me was a tonic to my overall despair. It was almost a pity it was only going to be temporary. We were the first two there and Stacy immediately began to prepare some tea.

‘Err, actually Stacy I have brought my own tea bags.’

‘You didn’t need to do that, I know we aren’t rolling in it but we can afford tea bags.’

‘Well you see, its errm, its Earl Grey tea.’

‘Earl Grey? Really?’

‘Yes.’

‘You seriously drink that, like for real?’

‘Yes.’

I could not fathom her response to this, perhaps she was mocking me? Looking at her face I came to the conclusion that she was not, she was just simply surprised for some reason that my tastes went beyond supermarket own brand.

‘Would you like one?’ I offered.

‘An Earl Grey?’

Was this a difficult concept to grasp?

‘Yes.’

‘No thanks, didn’t like it the first time. Probably not gonna the second either.’

Oh well “You can take a horse to water” as they say. Or maybe introduce a philistine to culture was more apt?

‘Do you have any lemon?’

‘Lemon?’

Feeling exasperated I realised further discussion on the subject was futile, Stacy was obviously an experiential learner. The only way for her to comprehend the quality of Earl Grey and the need for Lemon was to actually try it.

‘Never mind.’

I contemplated asking if there were any cups but due to our current communication difficulties I elected not to and made our drinks in two mugs instead. Perhaps I could gently prompt her to obtain some cups.

She was not finished though, ‘I just can’t see how anyone would actually wanna drink tea that didn’t smell, well, like tea should,’ she said.

Fighting my disappointment and slight indignation I said ‘It tastes better with Lemon.’

‘I hate Lemons,
its bad enough it smells like flowers. Making it smell like a fruit n veg stall just doesn’t float my boat I’m afraid.’

Point made.
I had to admit I was surprised that she had even tried it. Not liking it was odd but her comparison to a fruit and veg shop was quite frankly insane in my opinion.

Stacy allowed me check my email in box, it was still empty apart from some further automatic out of office replies and a message telling me I was owed a large sum of compensation from “my accident”. I was not aware that I had been in an accident, other than my life in general metaphorically speaking.

In my classroom there was a small pile of papers containing the information on the young people I was due to teach the following week as well as some course materials. As I was looking through the course work Dan appeared.

‘Hello Dan, how are you?’

He walked over to me and made a fist, as we touched he said ‘Fist pump.’

‘Fist pump indeed,’ I replied, unable to keep the smile from my face.

‘This is for you,’ he said. Producing a bus timetable and placing it on my desk.

At that moment I was incapable of a response, I still had some underlying guilt from the day before and was not expecting him to have been overly enthusiastic about talking to me, let alone go out of his way to obtain me a timetable, a gift essentially.

‘Dan, thanks. I’m very….touched.’

This was true; I had a range of conflicting emotions as I sat back and watched him walk away, I was genuinely beginning to develop a feeling of, what? I couldn’t put my finger on it but I was quite taken aback by Dan’s thoughtfulness. I spent the next hour or so organising myself for my teaching debut, eventually Stacy appeared with the tea trolley.

‘Tea and biccies time!’ she announced.

I could feel a palpable sense of dread rising when she placed the mug in front of me; however it was immediately obvious that she had made me Earl Grey. With a theatrical flourish she produced a small dish from underneath the trolley which contained a slice of Lemon.

‘The Lemon’s from Yu.’

As pleased as I was at the Earl Grey, I had to correct her appalling grammar.

‘You mean
for
you?’

‘No dipstick, it’s
from
Yu! The Cook!’

‘Oh, of course. Sorry.’

‘Your blushing!’ she exclaimed with a grin.

Alas this was almost certainly true as I was feeling very embarrassed at my latest verbal blunder.

‘Anyway, she has also made you breakfast. C’mon.’

I had engrossed myself in my teaching preparation so much that I had forgotten about how hungry I was. As we ate yet another Full English I was able to find out that my ‘group’ next week was made up of local young people who were unemployed.

‘They may give you a bit of a hard time at first but just stay strong, be the boss.  I hope they want their jobseekers allowance enough to toe the line.’

‘If they don’t?’

‘Well I’ll back you up, but essentially they don’t get the job seekers if they don’t attend or get kicked off so they can’t push it too far.’

‘I see. I’m sure it will be fine,’ although I had to admit I was starting to feel slightly nervous about the whole thing.

‘Great, listen can you do me a favour?’

‘I will certainly try.’

‘Can you take Dan to the shop? We need more milk and he likes to go but I get worried, sometimes he has had a hard time from some of the locals.’

‘Of course, no problem,’ at least I could be doing something for
Dan; this might help me address my feelings of guilt.

‘Thanks, we can couch it so that he is showing you where the shop is. He’ll like that.’

‘That’s fine.’

So Dan and I set off for the local shop, I actually already knew where it was as I passed it twice a day during my commute to the centre and back. In fact it was within sight of the centre and as I glanced back I could see Stacy surreptitiously watching from a window. I decided not to let Dan know that I already knew where the shop was as he was obviously taking his tour guide job very seriously.

As we approached it a group of four young men were exiting, we stood back to allow them to pass when one of them noticed Dan.

‘Hey mate, nice cap!’ he said referring to Dan’s head gear. Dan beamed in response but before either of us could say anything the young man had snatched it from his head.

‘It’s cool. I think I am gonna keep it. You don’t have a problem with that do ya?’

There was a chorus of giggles from his friends standing behind him. This was what Stacy was worried about and why I was here.

‘Just give it him back,’ I said.

He looked at me for the first time and it obviously came as some surprise to him to find that I was accompanying Dan.

‘Or what?’ he said somewhat aggressively.

This was the type of “yobbish” behaviour that one could expect from idiots like this. When challenged he automatically resorted to aggression and plenty of it. However one thing history had shown was that intelligence always beats aggression and I had plenty of that, I felt.

‘Or you will be immersing yourself in ignominy.’

He quite clearly did not have clue how to respond, he just looked at me and then down at the cap he was still holding in his hands.

‘What, you mean you can catch it?’ he asked.

Oh good grief! Did this Neanderthal seriously think that Down’s syndrome was infectious?

‘If by “catch it” you mean a portion of Dan’s humanity and compassion? Then yes I certainly hope so.’

He held the hat out to Dan as if it might explode.

‘Here mate, take it back.’

‘You can have it,’ Dan said.

Neither of us was expecting Dan to say that and we looked at each other, both of us unsure how to respond. I did not want to upset Dan by refusing to allow him his act of kindness but I also did not want him to be taken advantage of.

‘Kurt man, chuck it at him. You don’t wanna catch being a spacker!’ one of his cronies called out from behind him. To my surprise he did not throw it, he turned still holding the cap and glared at the person who had made the comment, the group fell silent. There was no doubt that Kurt
was the Alpha male in this pack.

He turned back to Dan and said, ‘No listen mate, it’s your cap, you should have it,’ as he held it out. Dan stepped forward and took the cap from him.

‘Ok,’ Dan said. Then before I had time to realise what he was going to do next and stop him, he kissed Kurt on the cheek. I froze, surely if ever there was a catalyst for Kurt to become violent that was just it? I stared at Kurt, Kurt stared at Dan and Dan calmly put his cap back on.

There was more laughter from behind, ‘Kurt’s pulled!’, ‘Got a new boyfriend Kurt?’ The laughter continued as well as some inexplicable hand gestures which appeared to be attempts to remove something unpleasant from their fingers by flicking their wrists towards the ground.

Kurt’s expression hardened and I was anticipating an aggressive response directed at Dan, instinctively I stepped between them. Kurt glared at me.

‘Oh yeah?’ he challenged. ‘What you gonna do, bore me to death?’

I did not respond, not because I was attempting to outstare or intimidate him but simply because I had no idea what to say or do next.

‘Don’t get in my face man!’ he threatened me.

I still had no idea what to do next.

‘Alright hard man, I’ll let it go this time. But don’t be fronting up to me less you want some grief, got it?’ I still said nothing.

He turned back towards his group who were still giggling and making inane comments about Dan, ‘What? What? You got something to say?’ he challenged. Getting no response he continued, ‘C’mon say it now! No? Well shut up then!’

Facing us again the hard expression slowly dissolved, ‘Why did he do that?’ he asked me.

I was taken aback by Kurt’s sudden change in demeanour, a few seconds before he was threatening me now he wanted my advice. None of this encounter made any sense.

‘His name is Dan,’ I said and relishing the moment added, ‘Why don’t you ask him?’

Dan had moved around me so that he could see what was going on.

‘Dan mate, why did you do that?’ Kurt asked.

‘Cos we are friends now.’

‘Ok mate, friends, yeah. With you though,’ he added glaring at me again. I assumed this was to reinforce to me that I was not going to win a popularity contest with him. Oh what a tragic loss! I thought to myself.

‘Fist pump,’ Dan announced offering his fist. Kurt looked down at it and then gave his now silent group another glare before touching fists. ‘Ok mate.’ ‘See you later,’ he said to Dan.

Kurt then glared at me one final time for good measure, turned and walked away. As he did so I heard him say to his group ‘Anyone touches him they are dead, got it?’ There were some mummers in response but no one in the group seemed to wish to challenge him.

He then added for my benefit, ‘That only applies to Dan though,’ grinning at me as he said it.

‘Yeah, sorted,’ one of his group responded. ‘You better watch your back pal!’ the idiot called out to me.

‘Delightful people,’ I muttered to myself.

I noticed that Stacy was standing across the road; she must have witnessed the scene unfolding from the window and had come out to help. I felt quite touched by her concern but also quite proud to have dealt with the potential conflict myself as well as relieved to have lived through it.

She mouthed ‘Ok?’ at me. I just nodded and entered the shop with Dan, making sure she could not see the grin that was spreading across my face.

‘What happened there then?’ Stacy asked as we returned
to the centre.

‘Oh, we bought some milk,’ I offered.

In truth I had been expecting to be questioned and was paraphrasing the encounter with the shop keeper who had asked me ‘What was going on?’ Dan had answered ‘We are buying milk,’ on my behalf, it amused me and on the spur of the moment I decided to repeat it for Stacy’s benefit.

‘Alright smarty pants! What really happened?’

What had happened? I could simply relay the encounter but I was sure there was a deeper significance to the interaction. Dan had yet again shown incredible kindness, Kurt had looked like he had been affected by the whole thing as well and me? Well I felt quite proud of myself at having been able to manage the situation; as long as my group were not as bad as those boys I would be fine.