Read Online Charlotte Street by Danny Wallace - Free Book Online Page B

photo?’ asked Pawel.
    ‘No!’
    ‘She knows you have these?’
    ‘Not exactly.’
    ‘She will find out?’
    ‘… no.’
    ‘
Make
them!’ he said.
    Dev made a satisfied face. Because he knew they were already pretty much developed.
    I ate my lunch in Postman’s Park. It made me feel like I had a proper job. Around me were city girls and city men, smart and tailored in white fitted shirts and pinstripe suits and A-line skirts. The camaraderie of work is the first thing you notice has gone when your office is your bedroom. Don’t get me wrong, I liked waking up late, and getting my news from
The Wright Stuff
, my first port of call whenever I needed to copy an opinion on global events from Anton du Beke to pass off as my own. I liked making my own lunch, with
Loose Women
on in the background, and then sitting down to think up ideas that might take me further at
London Now
. But it was moments like this, moments spent watching other people’s colleagues sitting down together, spooning out their M&S salads and coleslaws, making their in-jokes, swapping snide gossip and who-does-she-think-she-is’s and half-meant promises to meet Friday at Bar 18. I liked the smokers huddled outside the buildings, laughing and wheezing in a fug of friendship. I liked it when people nodded their hello to the security guard on the way in, and ignored them on their six o’clock run for freedom.
    It’s not the teaching I missed. I’d never had grand ideas about being an educator. It’s not as easy as it looks. And it’s not as if I was some kind of intellectual. I guess if I was one of my old teachers, this is what I’d say:
    Attitude: Yes
.
    Aptitude: No
.
    Overall: Maybe
.
    It was the kids, mainly. The job was fine, the kids weren’t. And although I tried at first, it wasn’t long before I stopped trying.
    Here’s an actual honest-to-goodness conversation I overheard just last week. I’d been standing on the platform at Essex Road, and from somewhere to my right I heard a voice I recognised. It was Matthew Fowler, a kid I’d taught my first year at St John’s. He was gone in the blink of an eye, off to make his mark on the world, but not before he’d made it at St John’s, nearly blinding a kid in the year below with a compass.
    And now here he was, on his mobile, hood up, tracksuit bottoms pulled up high, nasty bruise on his arm. I instinctively turned away from him, and pulled my newspaper to my face – a day-old copy of
Metro
, since you ask, but don’t tell Zoe; that’s a sacking offence. I’m not sure why I hid. He’d never have recognised me. As a teacher, I’d made far less of an impression on him than he’d made on me.
    Then, suddenly, another voice, this one unknown. Some kind of family friend.
    ‘Maffew!’ she shouted. ‘Haven’t seen you in fucking ages! How’s your mum?’
    ‘Okay,’ he said.
    ‘You married, then?’
    ‘Nah,’ he shrugged.
    ‘Not married? How old are ya?’
    ‘Twenty-one.’
    ‘Twenty-one?’ she said, in disbelief. ‘You must have a
baby
, though?’
    ‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Ten months.’
    ‘Bloody hell!’ she said, relieved. ‘I was gonna
say
…!’
    Somehow it was hard to get Matthew Fowler interested in soil erosion. But this sounds cruel, and patronising, and empty.There were clearly extenuating circumstances, you’d say. Broken home, maybe. Abuse. Nope. Matthew Fowler just couldn’t care less. Simple as that. And when it came to teaching, I was never cut out to be Michelle Pfeiffer, turning geography into rap, inspiring and uniting through belief in myself, belief in the
kids
. No. I wanted to review bad bands and stay up late and watch films about animal art instead. Actually, maybe it was me who couldn’t care less.
    I finished my ham and mustard sandwich and scrunched up the plastic, standing to read the plaque opposite.
    JOHN CRANMER, CAMBRIDGE, AGED 23. A Clerk in The London County Council, was drowned near Ostend whilst saving the life of a stranger and a