The Fellow from whom came the Sea

Old accusations throbbed inside the Teacher’s head but he kept trampling across the potato field in the afternoon heat. Clumps of dry soil crunched and crumbled under his brogues. A sweltering jacket made the shadows under his armpits darken his shirt. Unbuttoning his collar released steam from his torso and sweat dripped from his nose tip and upper lip. A hidden furrow flung him into the Boy at his side.

Chimneys came into view where the farmland ended and the Teacher was reminded of what happened in a Devonshire suburb two years ago. He nudged the Boy:

“Are you sure Peter wants to see me? Isn’t he too ill for visitors?”

“Definite, sir. He likes them stories you tell about livin’ next tuh sea, where you’re from.”

The Teacher sneered at the Boy’s rumpled appearance; the dirty fingernails and greasy black hair that looked like starling feathers. But Peter was a star pupil: studious and obedient with good attendance – until he fell ill.

A tussock collapsed under the Teacher’s foot and he tumbled again.

“Isn’t there another way to Peter’s house?”

“Yeah, but this is quickest, sir. Any road, you can see it now.”

There was a red brick cul-de-sac up ahead.

Clouds covered the sun and a breeze crept up the Teacher’s sleeve, cooling the air beneath his clothes. He thought about Torquay and balked.

“I think I should go back to school. Peter can wait for another time to hear some stories…”

The Boy panicked and tugged the Teacher’s arm.

“No, sir. It’s gotta be now. We’re nearly there. He really wants to hear about the sea.”

“Really?”

“About the mermaids, sir. And the pirates with funny beards. Seahorses, Noah and the whale…”

“Jonah and the whale. It’s Noah and the Ark.”

“…Noah and the Ark, giant squids, submarines, the Titanic and Homer and the police sirens.”

“Police sirens?”

“On the rocks, sir. Singing to the sailors, hypnotising ‘em.”

“Oh, I see. They’re just called sirens; they entice Odysseus and his crew on their way back home to Ithaca.”

“Definite, sir. Come on.”

 

Peter and his classmates watched the Teacher and the Boy approach the cul-de-sac. They sniggered at his flapping gait, wading through loose soil in hard shoes and a heavy suit. Someone brought in more water balloons and put them with the others wobbling on the bedroom windowsill.

All apprehension left the Teacher’s mind. Stepping onto tarmac, the Boy pointed to Peter’s front door. The Teacher straightened himself and slid his tie knot to his Adam’s apple in case there were parents to meet.

He had memorised The Rime Of The Ancient Mariner, parts one to three, for tomorrow’s lesson but would recite it for Peter should he miss more school.

The Teacher raised his hand to knock on the door when the Boy ran off, shouting: “Now!” Suddenly wild-eyed infant faces appeared in all the upstairs windows.

A water balloon exploded on the Teacher’s shoulder. He looked up to see Peter jumping up and down, fists clenched, shouting: “Paedo! Paedo! Paedo!”

Staggering backwards the Teacher looked around him and stood helplessly as a barrage of multicoloured bombs descended upon him, soaking him to his core, accompanied by more chants of “Paedo! Paedo! Paedo!”

Surly adults came to their doorways to stare. And nothing else.

The Teacher was drenched in his shady reputation. He pictured Peter, behind a banister, eavesdropping on his parents’ whispered conversations. How a rumour had followed him to another county.

He squelched back home to call the headmaster, and went to bed leaving a trail of muddy footprints behind him.

Matthew Hedley Stoppard was born and brought up in Derbyshire, but now lives in Leeds after attending university there. His first poem was published by United Press in 2004 when he was 18 years’ old and he has since been published by The Cadaverine, Earlyworks Press, Cinnamon Press, Rubies In The Darkness and Norwich Writers’ Circle. He won first and third in The Ugly Tree Open poetry competition in 2007 and won fourth prize in the Hastings International Poetry Competition in both 2009 and 2010. Some of his verse will feature in forthcoming editions of Iota, Popshot Magazine, Cake and Message In A Bottle.