Wednesday 29 January 2014

The Teacher part 2




It’s essentail that for this story to work you have read the previous one. Therefore instead of a link I have inlcuded it here. 
So part 2 is below part 1 
‘I’m all lost in the supermarket’
The words of the Clash song echoed around my mind but I wasn’t Lost in a Supermarket I was lost in Swindon’s outlet centre and I considered that to be markedly worse. The Outlet centre is a huge, soulless sprawl of shops in a converted railway works. Where once trains were lovingly constructed by skilled workers ,now tat was carelessly sold by half-hearted shop assistants. Wannabe middle class punters wandered around looking for bargains on things they didn’t know they needed, with money they didn’t know they had. Maybe it’s harsh to call it soulless, if you listened closely you could hear the ghosts of the former workforce building ghost trains appalled by the tawdry commercialisation of their former factory.  

I wasn’t really lost, I could find the way out if I’d need to, and as soon as the moment came I would be gone like a flash, I was more lost in the brain, lost in life. How on earth had I ended up here, sweeping the floors and cleaning the loos in this monstrosity of shopping mall?
Just 8 months ago I had been the youngest deputy head teacher in Wales. A real success story, the world was my oyster. I’d already turned down two headships, waiting for the right school to come along. On top of that I’d just met Mary who was the girl I’d been waiting for. 
But then, the Police turned up at the school and I was led away in handcuffs in front of the entire staff and all the kids. 
Magda (not her real name)  was a sixteen year old who had developed a crush on me that had turned into a relationship. Luckily the relationship was played out in her fantasy but unluckily for me that didn’t stop her from talking about it to her friends in great detail. One of her friends told her parents, quite understandably they'd phoned the police. 
Suspension pending investigation. It didn’t help that my surname is File, Paedo File cried the headlines as my name and photo was all over the local newspapers and local news. 

The police quickly of course concluded that I had done nothing wrong, Magda told her stories which were full of implausible inconsistencies. I provided alibis and accounted for my movements, the police searched for but couldn’t find and evidence and eventually Magda confessed to making the whole thing up. 
I didn’t hate the police, they were only doing their job, had it been my daughter telling the stories, I would have wanted them to investigate the pervert just as thoroughly. But the press had no right to print my name without one scrap of credible evidence, while my colleagues went for the guilty until proven innocent approach too. 

Once my name was cleared, I was determined to return to school, to ride the punches, resume my career But I found it impossible. It wasn’t that I couldn’t forgive the colleagues who had cast the first stones and it wasn’t that I couldn’t deal with the gossip and innuendo from the kids. It was just that I didn’t trust a soul. I never wanted to be left alone with a student again in case lightening was about to strike twice. I had the yips, I’d lost confidence. the things that had made me a good teacher had deserted me. I no longer command respect.  So I left, walked away from the profession I loved, went to stay with my brother in Didcot and got a job cleaning toilets here so I can pay the mortgage and try to stay sane until my compensation claims come through. 
And Mary? Well, Mary didn’t wait to find out the truth, she didn’t need to, she just believed me from the outset. She is my silver lining. in all this Despite her parents telling her to leave, despite the abuse she got on the street, despite the graffiti on her car she stayed strong. So on my days off from this consumerist hell, I can still find my heaven. 


Hey Teacher leave those kids alone. 
Hi I’m Magda, recognise the name, you probably think of me as the fantasist or the liar or the stupid girl. Of course Magda’s not my real name but at least he had the good grace to change the name but he didn’t do anything else to protect  me  and didn’t exactly paint me as innocent either. Well, as he’s chosen a name that brings to mind a eastern European whore let me choose a name that’s loaded for him. Yeah let’s call him Jimmy. Oh by the way his real name isn’t File, he made that up to attract more sympathy.

Of course you believed him didn’t you, look at him in his suit and his glasses and with his lovely girlfriend, of course he was going to sound more what’s the word, convincing. Who was going to believe a stupid little girl in school uniform?

The police made me feel like the one who did somethng wrong, they took one look at my big eyes and even bigger tits and decided that I was begging for it.  Have you ever been in an interview room with two male coppers asking you question after question? It’s intimidating, there was no victim support officer, they didn’t see me as a victim you see. So they threw all these questions at me, I tried to  answer but, they were confusing me and I was scared. In the end it was easier for me to say I made it all up. That is what they kept saying to me. ‘You made it up didn’t you?’ In the end it was easier just to say yes.

I bet they weren’t like that with Jimmy, I bet they made him a cup of tea and let him have his lawyer, I bet they were looking for things to believe not for lies and mix ups.

Well the police didn’t listen to me, but I hope you will. How do relationships between teachers and their students develop? I bet you think it’s the student that develops a crush and comes on to the teacher don’t you. But this was the other way around. He came on to me. He used to walk around the class and put his creepy hands on students’ shoulders when he wanted them to speak. His hands would always linger a little longer on mine, and his thumb dug into my back, in a spot that made mementarily go momentarily dizzy. I joked with my friends that he was creepy hoping they’d tell me he was doing the same to them but either he wasn’t or they were keeping mum.
Then one day he asked me to stay behind after class. After all the others had gone he put his hands on my face and pull me in to kiss me, forcing his tongue into my mouth. I pushed him away, I couldn’t believe it. He was cute, all the girls fancied him, we’d talked about shagging him but it was teenage dreams. This was wrong, horribly wrong, he was my teacher, he shouldn’t have been kissing me.
‘Oh come on, you know you want it.’ he said in a voice that made me feel like spewing. ‘And your grades definitely want it.’ If I already felt sick, these latest words made me want to double vom.
So it started, after lessons I’d stay behind and let him kiss me and touch me. Then it was after school, him taking me for little ‘drives’.
My friends noticed I was quieter than usual, my mum would ask if everything was okay. I told them I was worried about my exams, trying to concentrate on them. But when he suggested getting a hotel room that was when I had to tell someone. Up until then what we had done could only be described as heavy petting, but a hotel room was escalating things. Fuck my grades, I wasn’t going to let that creep fuck me. So I told my friend Jemma, who told her mum, who called the police. The rest you know.
In sex ed lessons they tell you to speak out if you are a victim of sexual abuse, in teen magazines they say the same. But the reality is that people will believe who they want to believe.






2 comments:

  1. would be better being a teacher's teacher..;-)..
    no little girls, no big perverts.. just some adults.. maybe some perverted minds wanting to pay homage to Kubrick playing Lolita :-)

    ReplyDelete
  2. Even dreams can be dangerous ..... girls, be careful when you wish something to happen because dreams come true and they may become nightmares.

    ReplyDelete