Yearning (2 page)

‘They’re such tarts!’ hissed Amanda.

‘Yeah. Sluts.’

Gradually the room filled with lazy rebellion. Girls dumped bags and books and slumped into chairs while a
group of boys schemed how they were going to wind up the substitute teacher who was arriving this morning.

Their plotting was disturbed by the creak of the classroom door. A man strode in, his ponytail swinging in time with his hips. The clunk of his platform shoes drew all eyes to him. A gold medallion nested in a puff of chest hair rising from the open neck of his paisley body shirt, and his pants hugged his buttocks, leaving nothing to the imagination. The pitched volume of the classroom fell back to a soft murmur as he sauntered past students, patting shoulders and introducing himself, all warm-eyed and welcoming.

She held her breath as he approached her.

‘Hello,’ he said, holding out his hand, ‘I’m Solomon Andrews.’

She nervously took his fingers into her own. Her mouth opened and shut a few times before she could speak. ‘I . . . I’m your neighbour.’

She cringed when she heard her own voice. She’d squawked, like a frightened bird. Everyone within hearing distance turned to watch. Whispering created its own wind. Solomon regarded her for a moment and she dropped her gaze.

‘Cool.’ He sounded kind. ‘Drop by sometime. My door’s always open to my students.’

She pulled her hand away and felt her face flood with colour. He moved on to another desk, leaving her gaping behind him.

The girl behind her poked her in the back with a ruler. ‘Is that true? He lives next door?’ The tone half awe-struck, half accusing.

She shrugged the question away, flushing deeper with embarrassment, her palms damp.

By the time he’d reached the raised platform at the front of the room more than half the class were sitting to attention. They looked at this apparition of a teacher, unlike any they’d seen before. They were used to old teachers, teachers who wore baggy trousers and horn-rimmed glasses and ties. He was young. He had long hair and a beard. His pants were tight.

He dumped a woven bag of books onto the floor and picked up a long piece of chalk. In bold letters he wrote his name in the upper corner of the blackboard and turned to face them with one thumb hooked into the front pocket of his pants.

‘G’day, everyone. I’m replacing Mrs Mackay while she’s away on long service leave. My name is Solomon Andrews.’ He tapped the board, speckling tiny dots under his name. ‘But you guys can call me Solomon.’ And he drew a heavy line under his first name.

The class rippled with sound. The school rules said they had to call their teachers by their surnames. Mr This, Mrs That, Miss Someone Else. Girls grinned stupidly and the boys exchanged glances.

‘Mrs Mackay has given me her plan for the rest of the year, so I know where you’re up to.’

She wavered. Mrs Mackay made English so boring. Please, please don’t be boring.

‘We’ll continue with the books you’ve started, but before we go too far, I’d like to get to know you guys.’ He rested a foot on the seat of his chair and leaned an elbow on his knee. She’d never seen a teacher so relaxed.

‘Hands up who likes English?’

Her hand was in the air before she’d thought about it. Only a handful of others had responded, waving limp fingers at the ceiling. The class tittered and Amanda kicked her. She looked around at the disdainful stares of her classmates and dropped her hand back to the desk, before glancing sheepishly back at Solomon.

‘Thought as much.’ He said it so softly she wasn’t even sure she’d heard it. ‘Now gang, I want an honest answer to this. Who thinks English is boring?’

Hands flooded the air. Solomon smiled. ‘Okay. Guys, we’re going to talk a bit about why we study English. Has anyone heard of Bernard Shaw?’

Eyes blinked in unanimous silence.

‘ “Life is a flame that is always burning itself out, but it catches fire again every time a child is born. Life is greater than death, and hope than despair.” Bernard Shaw wrote that in 1932.’

Someone cleared their throat. Mystified, she wondered what he was talking about. Solomon stroked his beard as he regarded the class.

‘Okay. Who liked
Star Wars
?’

Enthusiastic hands waved in the air.

‘And does anyone listen to Bob Dylan?’

More hands, peppered with ‘Yessir’s’. Like a wave, the class was swelling with interest.

‘What do you think George Lucas and Bob Dylan have in common?’

His question was met with silence and blank stares. Solomon pushed a stray curl aside and strode down an aisle, rubbing his palms together as he spoke. ‘They use
English to express themselves. Without words, Lucas doesn’t have a script. Without words, Dylan doesn’t have songs.’

He paused. A boy sniggered in the back row. Hope and suspicion hung in the air.

‘Bob Dylan drew his stage name from the poet, Dylan Thomas. His name and his music are inspired by poetry. Imagine what might be possible if you were inspired like that. Someone here could be the next Bob Dylan, Germaine Greer or Xavier Herbert. You’ll never know unless you learn to express yourself, through words. And I’m going to teach you how. And we’re going to have fun doing it.’

Amanda nudged her and scribbled on the bottom of her page: ‘Who’s Zavyer Herbet?’ Frowning, she shook her head. She didn’t care. That Solomon thought she could be anyone at all was exciting enough.

Solomon, now at the back of the room, pulled a chair out from behind a desk and turned it, its legs scraping the floorboards as he sat astride it. He crossed his arms over its chipped back. His gaze shifted from teenager to teenager, inviting them to him, demanding their attention.

‘English isn’t just about grammar and comprehension,’ he said. ‘It’s about opening up and exploring the world around you and your relationship to it. You guys are at an age where you should be asking lots of questions. Who are you? What kind of person do you want to become? What do you have to say?’

A hand shot up. Solomon pointed at the lean boy with thick glasses and round patches of sweat darkening his grey school shirt.

‘Sir, I have a question. Why do you have long hair?’

Laughter washed over the dry floorboards.

‘What’s your name?’

‘Geoffrey.’

‘First, Geoffrey, my name is Solomon, not Sir. Second, I have long hair because I prefer it. Does it bother you?’

‘My mum says men with long hair are dirty hippies.’

The mood of the class shifted. They waited for the reprimand, a slap across the back of the head, but it didn’t come. Instead Solomon smiled, almost to himself.

‘Your mum has an interesting point of view, Geoffrey. But I’m more interested in what you think.’

Geoffrey blushed. He wasn’t known for his ability to think. ‘I dunno, Mr Andrews.’

‘Solomon, thanks, Geoffrey,’ he corrected. ‘Do you think it’s strange, Geoffrey, that you’re more familiar with your mum’s opinion’s than you are with your own?’

Solomon gazed at the boy, who shifted in his seat and fiddled with his ruler. Geoffrey shrugged. Solomon wandered over to his desk and caught the ruler in his hand. ‘I want to know what you think.’

Geoffrey’s feet scuffed the floorboards.

‘In fact, I want to know what
all
of you think. So, homework. You will each write one paragraph to present to the class next week on your personal opinion of men with long hair.’

People groaned and heads bobbed in a wave of protest. Solomon waited for the disturbance to die down before going on. ‘And I won’t care if you say you don’t like it. I want you to be honest. I also want you to start on a major project. A self-portrait using words and images, due at the
end of first term. Be creative. You can use pictures from magazines, music lyrics, whatever you like, to describe to me who you are. I don’t want to know what you look like. I’ve got eyes, I can see you. I want to know what matters to you, what you want from your life.’

He waited for his words to sink in. Somebody coughed at the back of the room. Discomfort rose like vapour. A handful of riveted faces filled with expectation turned towards this new teacher, this new experience. She glanced at Amanda, whose eyes were as round as her blazer buttons.

She leant her cheek on her hand and gazed at this matador of a man. He stood before them, his eyes alive with possibility and belief in them. She wanted to please him, wanted to fulfil his dreams for her. She resolved then and there that she would do anything, whatever it took, to make him proud.

*

At recess girls descended upon her, a squall of seagulls hungry with curiosity.

‘When did he move in?’

‘Have you talked to him?’

‘Does he have a girlfriend?’

‘He’s like a Big M guy.’

‘You spaz. He’s heaps spunkier than the Big M guys.’

‘Does he have a cool car?’

‘What’s he like?’

The barrage of questions was relentless. And impossible to answer.

Within twenty-four hours, the news that the handsome substitute teacher was her neighbour had washed through
the student body like a tide. Girls older than her, girls she barely knew existed, approached her wanting to know more, including Tracey. A week after Solomon’s arrival the spiteful tigress cornered her in the locker room. Two years older and twenty years meaner, Tracey had hassled her from the moment she’d stepped through the school gates in her oversize school dress. She watched warily as Tracey approached her dangling a tiny pair of binoculars between two fingers. Her ice blue eyes gleamed maliciously beneath the thick black muck of her mascara.

‘Here! You’re gonna need these.’ Tracey tried to push the glasses into reluctant hands.

‘Why?’

‘You’re gonna spy on him for me, dope.’ Tracey licked her lips as if she were contemplating her next meal.

‘I – I can’t. I’ll get into trouble.’ She shook her head, wishing she didn’t babble when she was scared.

‘ “
I’ll get in trouble
”,’ Tracey mimicked. ‘You’re such a nerd.’

‘Am not.’

Tracey’s lip curled as she shoved the glasses at her. ‘Then you’ll spy on him.’ She pushed her back against the lockers, one hand on her shoulder, the other pressing the binoculars painfully into her belly. ‘Take ’em. You’ll be sorry if you don’t.’ Tracey let the binoculars go, smirking as she watched her fumbling to catch them before they hit the concrete floor.

‘I wanna know if he’s got a girlfriend. You’ll report back to me every day, and don’t try avoiding me, unless you wanna lose some teeth. Dag!’ Tracey stalked away, sneering.

Reluctant and helpless, she pushed the binoculars deep into her school bag, hoping to forget about them. But they clunked against her lunch box as she walked to the bus stop that afternoon, and they emerged with her rain jacket as she pulled it out on the way home. She studied them nervously before shoving them back in among her books. They were small, barely a handful of metal and glass. A spark of curiosity lit beneath her fear. She had a good view of his study from her bedroom window. No one would know if she looked in on him now and then. It might be fun. Besides, whether he had a girlfriend or not, Tracey wouldn’t have a chance with Solomon. He was way too good for her.

*

Rumours. From whispers and hints they grew, like mould, in the corners of Solomon’s classrooms. Dark accusations of what lay in Solomon’s past followed him like a shadow. Wide-eyed, she listened as Amanda told her about a fifth-form girl from a school in a not so faraway town.

‘My cousin told me they used to disappear at lunch-times,’ Amanda whispered, licking jam from the corner of her mouth.

‘Who?’

‘Solomon and this girl.’

‘No . . . ’

‘Yeah. She had to leave school ’cause she got pregnant.’

She stared at Amanda, unsure how to react. ‘To him?’

Amanda shrugged. ‘Who else? My cousin said she didn’t have a boyfriend.’

She stared at her sandwich, her appetite lost to the story.

‘I bet he’s a great kisser.’ Amanda giggled, spitting crumbs everywhere. Amanda looked up and noticed her crestfallen face. ‘What’s up your bum?’

‘It’s bullshit,’ she said. ‘Your cousin’s making it up.’

‘She isn’t. She goes to the same school.’

‘I don’t believe it.’

‘Why not?’

‘Because Solomon’s too . . . He’s so nice. He wouldn’t do that. He’s a teacher.’

‘Mate, you’re such a nerd. Solomon is no normal teacher. If anyone was gonna screw a student I’d bet on him. Wonder who he’s got his eye on here? Probably Tracey Mitchell, all the guys love her.’

‘It’s not true. People in this town are such drags, they’ll make anything up to bring someone down. He’s the coolest teacher this shit place has ever had.’

Amanda rolled her eyes. ‘You’re so in love with him you can’t see straight.’

She felt heat in her cheeks. ‘Am not.’

‘Are too. You’d screw him if you got the chance. All of us would.’

Amanda was giving her the shits. She leaned across and thumped her hard on the arm.

‘Ow!’ Amanda scrunched her eyebrows together.

‘Serves you right,’ she muttered as she packed up her lunchbox. ‘Come on, I wanna go to the library.’

*

The usually vacant seats at the front of the class had become premium real estate. Every girl wanted to be closer to him, to watch the shift of his buttocks as he wrote on
the blackboard. Nineteen pairs of adolescent eyes followed his glide and parry as he moved about the class discussing Steven Biko’s notion of Black Consciousness, or the purpose of women’s rights, or the nature of love according to Shakespeare.

Sometimes Solomon’s ideas made her head hurt. There was so much more to the world than she’d been led to believe. At Solomon’s beckon her future galloped ahead of her, possibility spilling from its saddle, making her want to reach beyond the aimless expectations of her parents. College and university weren’t words much used in her home, but recently she’d begun to drop them here and there, testing her parents’ resistance to them. She wanted to be a writer, or a teacher, an inspiration – like Solomon.

Outside class the boys mimicked his confident swagger and girls whispered their crushes behind nail-bitten hands, cooing over his dark smouldering looks. She listened to them joke about ‘doing it’ with him and felt the dangerous lure of him, a shining, colourful feathered thing like the tackle that lay dormant in her father’s fishing box.