The World Out There - 21. Twenty-One

He met Mrs Williams on his first full day at Nurton Cross. All the nurses called her Cecelia Williams, but to him, she was always Mrs Williams. That was what he always called teachers.

Just after nine o’clock that morning, Liam and two other lads were taken to the Education Centre by Gary, another nurse there. Gary was a short wiry man, whose short dark hair was streaked with white highlights, but there was something strong and commanding about Gary. Liam didn’t want to question any of Gary’s orders. The other two lads, who seemed older than Liam- and they were certainly taller - silently did what Gary said without any protest.

The Education Centre was on the building’s first floor. When he entered it, he wasn’t very surprised by it: it looked like the large classrooms back at his old school. The room’s walls were painted an off-white, covered in posters and notice boards and obscured by different sets of shelves. The furniture included the functional pale-topped Formica tables and plastic chairs. The room was light with a large and long window that filled the top half of one of the walls. It was like the classroom windows in his old school, even down to the big window panels that opened by swinging through ninety degrees, all except for the thick, black horizontal bars fixed outside of them.

Later Liam would realise that the Education Centre consisted of three classrooms like this one, all next to each other, and an office used by the teachers and teaching assistants.

The two other lads, whom Gary had brought there with him, quickly left them, and went to sit at two different tables. Gary said to him, “Come with me.”

Without a word, Liam followed behind Gary, who led him through a side door in the room into the next room, which was another classroom. This room was empty, except for a woman sat at one of the tables. She was a slender black woman, and even sat down, he could see that she was tall.

As soon as she saw them entering the room, she stood up from her table and walked towards them, an open expression on her face.

She was certainly tall and statuesque. Her long and thin body was in perfect proportion to her slender arms that hung relaxed at her sides. With her even and fluid gate, she moved almost like a model. Her body was covered with a long and figure-hugging dark brown dress that ran from her neck down to her calves. Over this, she wore a thin grey cardigan, which was equally as long as her dress but didn’t cling to her body the way her dress did. With each step, her cardigan flowed out behind her. Her sleaves were pushed part way up her forearms, exposing a chunky gold bangle around her right wrist. This matched the equally chunky, thick gold necklace that hung loosely around her neck, which in itself matched the thick hooped earrings that hung from both her ears.

Her hair had been plaited into fine and narrow braids which were interweaved into an elaborate and curling loose bun on the top of her head. This drew attention to her handsome face. Her slim face was filled with her strong and almost sculped feathers, her large and bright brown eyes that sparkled with flecks of gold in the full light in the room, and her mouth was wearing a full and open smile, displaying her strong and white teeth, framed by her red lips. He would later learn that her face was a mirror of her emotions: whatever she was feeling was broadcast across her face. However, in that moment, he was taken up by how handsome she was - not beautiful, because beauty always fades with time, but her handsome looks would last her for a lifetime.

“Cecelia, this is Liam Andrews, your new pupil,” Gary said in his flat voice.

“Welcome Liam, I’ve been expecting you. I’m Mrs Cecelia Williams, the Lead Teacher here,” the woman said. Her voice was as rich and poised as her body’s movements. Her accent seemed to be a posh, West London one - it was certainly a refined and poised one. “Come with me, Liam, I’ve got some work for you over here.”

Mrs Williams - he couldn’t think of her as anything else - began to lead him back to the table she had been sat at. She only took a few steps before she glanced back at Gary and said, “It’s all right. You can leave us now.”

“I’ve been told to stay with him,” Gary replied.

“I think I will be safe,” Mrs Williams said.

“Janet said I had to Special him today - stay with him while he’s here,” Gary told them.

“I guess we can work around that,” she said, smiling at Liam.

Once they had sat down together at the table, Mrs Williams began to explain the paperwork before them, “I want you to take these tests. They are nothing to worry about. They are just a way for me to know how far you’ve got at your old school and where we need to start with you. So, do not worry about wrong answers - simply write what you know. Is that all right?”

“Yes,” he replied to her.

“Do you know how to use a computer?”

“There were ones at school,” he said.

“So you used them often?”

“Not really. There weren’t many and the kids in the top classes got all the time on them. I didn’t get much chance on them,” he said.

“Did you have one at home?”

“My mum has a laptop, but she’d never let me use it,” he said.

“Then we’ll start you on using a computer. You should pick it up easily. You won’t be able to go onto the internet. You’ll need to earn rewards for that,” she replied.

He knew about rewards and privileges; Aiden had explained them the evening before. He would earn rewards through good behaviour and then they would buy him privileges, like access to the internet, and if his behaviour wasn’t acceptable, then he would lose some - or even all - his privileges. It all sounded like training a dog, but he knew better than to say that, even to Aiden. This was one of the rules of Nurton Cross and he now had to live by all of them.

As he began the first test, he’d glanced over at Mrs Williams. None of the teachers at his old school had been black. There had been other black kids at school, and there were certainly other black people on the estate where he’d lived with his mother. He’d not really mixed with any of the black kids at school: the black kids didn’t mix with the white kids - the groups and cliques were arranged almost totally along race lines, and he’d not had any real friends at school, no matter what their race. At home, his mother didn’t let him associate with any of their neighbours. She had alienated so many of them, but she especially didn’t approve of any of their black and Asian neighbours. She claimed anyone who wasn’t white was dirty, lazy, and often criminal. Liam hadn’t noticed any of this in their neighbours, especially their black ones, but he had to live by his mother’s rules, or else.

Mrs Williams was so poised and seemed so in control, yet she talked warmly to him and, in those first few moments, seemed genuinely interested in him. As she explained his tests, he wished he’d had black teachers back at his old school.

Mrs Williams’s tests were not difficult. He actually enjoyed the English and Maths ones because they felt so easy: he certainly knew all the answers to them. Some of the other questions on the two other tests she wanted him to do, he didn’t know the answers to, or he was almost sure he’d given the wrong answer, though he hadn’t known what the right answer was. He didn’t feel the pressure he had done at his old school whenever there was a test. Whenever there had been a test, he’d never found enough time to complete it: there would always be some sort of disruption, usually caused by Rhys Clarke and his mates, or some other lad grabbing for attention, eating into their time to complete it. Sitting there was just Mrs Williams as she worked away at her own paperwork on the other side of the table. He found he easily had enough time to finish these tests: he could actually take his time because there were no other distractions.

After he’d finished them, Mrs Williams took them off him and asked, “Do you like to read?”

“Oh yes,” he replied, not hiding the pleasure from his voice.

“One of the books for this year’s National Curriculum, for your year, is Animal Farm. Have you read it?”

“No,” he told her.

“Let me get you a copy.” She stood up from the table and in a few quick steps she had retrieved a book off one of the bookshelves stood against the wall and returned to the table with a slim paperback book, which she handed over to him.

“Thank you,” he said.

“You start reading that while I’ll mark your tests,” she told him.

“Yes,” he replied.

It was easy to read there: the classroom was quiet, and the only sound was Mrs Williams’s pen as she marked his tests, the sound of it moving over the paper. It was not really districting because he knew his scores would be low - they always were. He’d been told enough times he was only mediocre or worse. He knew his place on the intelligence scale and it wasn’t that high up. His mother called him stupid enough times and she knew him as well as anyone else.

On the other hand, the book Mrs Williams had given him was really interesting. It read almost like a children’s fairy tale, but the story was not a children’s one, even though it did have talking animals. This was very much an adult story. He was enjoying it so much that he barely noticed Mrs Williams and gave a little start when she spoke.

“Your test results are very interesting.”

“They are?” he said.

“Your English and Maths are very good: the odd spelling mistake, but that is not important. Your history, geography and science knowledge are poor, but that’s much more down to your old school. Your problem-solving skills are good. You are not as stupid as they told me you were.”

“How do you know they said I was stupid?” he asked. Was that in all those reports they had written about him before his trial.

“Because a lot of patients here have been told they were stupid before they came here, especially by their old schools. You are not the only one.”

“Oh,” he said, faced with her explanation. She must have been working here a long time.

“Now you will be our youngest pupil here, which will not be a problem,” Mrs Williams said. “It will mean that I will be your main teacher, I am the only teacher here experienced in your age group. You will be taught by some of our other teachers, from time to time, and you will meet our Teaching Assistants, so it won’t be all me.”

“That sounds good,” he replied. It did sound good, this place sounded like a school, not just a place he had to survive five days a week in.

“Let’s go and have some lunch,” Mrs Williams said.

“Yeah, I’m bloody starving,” Gary called out.

Liam had forgotten the man was there. He turned around in his chair and saw Gary still sitting in that chair by the door, his arms folded over his chest and a bored expression written heavily across his face.

After lunch Gary had brought him back up to Mrs Williams’s classroom, where Mrs Williams was waiting for him. Gary had again sat down on the chair by the door, but Mrs Williams had barely paid him any attention now, as if this happened all the time. Did it? Instead, she turned her attention onto Liam.

“This afternoon I want you to write me an essay,” she said.

Liam felt his stomach sink. He’d hated it when Miss James had announced this in an English lesson at his old school. It meant he’d have to write what he’d done during his summer holiday, which meant nothing but watching television, or about something he’d enjoying doing, which he usually had to make up. Or else, he would have to write an essay from the point-of-view of a minor character from the book the class was reading, and he hated that the most. These minor characters were minor for a reason, so why elevate them above that, if anyone could.

Instead Mrs Williams said, “Do you know about Edward VIII?”

“Not really,” Liam replied. The man was probably once the King but he didn’t know anymore.

“I’ve printed off a handful of articles from the internet, about Edward VIII. We must get you internet privileges. You are to read them and then write me an essay about him.”

“Yes. Thank you,” he said, taking the articles off her, with a pad of paper and a pen. This all sounded much more interesting.

He read the articles she’d given him, it felt so good having something interesting to read again. Edward VIII was the Queen’s uncle and sounded a right player and Ladies Man: he’d liked his women, especially if they were married. Wallis Simpson was American and married, and she chased after him, though Edward VIII seemed easily caught by her. When Edward’s father died, King George V, Edward became king, but only for a year. He abdicated because they wouldn’t let him marry Wallis Simpson, though she had divorced her husband. He left England and, as soon as he could, married Wallis Simpson.

At first, he thought it sounded like Charles and Camilla. His mother was a big Royal Family fan, especially Princess Diana, whom she’d almost turned into a saint. So of course, she hated Charles and Camilla. Charles had originally wanted to marry Camilla, but had been stopped from doing so, and then married Diana. In the end he’d married Camilla, though.

But as he thought about it, that was all wrong: this all had been eighty years ago. The world was such a different place then, and Wallis Simpson and Camilla were very different women, though Wallis Simpson was no beauty, even if Edward had a sort of square-jawed handsomeness about him.

He decided to write his essay backwards, starting with Edward and Wallis marrying in exile, working back through the abdication and George the Fifth’s death, and ending with them meeting. At the end, he was happy with it. He’d been given the chance to write what he’d seen from the facts, though he’d made some mistakes and the pen had smudged in places.

When he handed it over to Mrs Williams, she had quickly begun to read it, putting aside her own unfinished paperwork to do so. She read through it quickly and then a second time, but much more slowly, nodding to herself and even smiling at several points. When she was finished, she placed his essay down in front of herself and smiled at him.

“That was very good,” she told him. “I really liked the way you told the story backwards, beginning with the downside of their story, getting married after he had lost everything. I also liked your opinion of Wallis. She is so often portrayed as this American gold-digger, but you also write about Edward chasing after her.”

“He had form for chasing after married women.”

“Lord, he certainly did!” she told him. “I also liked the way that you talked about the nineteen-thirties’ England being such a different place than it is now. Liam, this is a very good essay. Well done.”

“Thank you,” he quietly said.

“I think we’ll say that lessons are over for today. I’ll start your curriculum properly tomorrow, but we won’t have this room to ourselves, you’ll have to join one of the other classes,” she told him.

Liam just smiled back at her: he had so enjoyed today, especially writing his essay. Mrs Williams made him feel so comfortable.

As he stood up from the table, he looked down at his copy of Animal Farm.

“Can I take Animal Farm with me, or do I have to leave it here?”

“Take it,” Mrs Williams smiled at him. “Bring it back when you’ve read it. You can write me an essay about it then.”

“Thank you,” he replied as he picked up the book.

“Come on. Let’s get you back to the ward,” Gary called out.

After supper that evening, Liam sat himself down in the corner of The Common Room, sitting on an old armchair, and carried on reading Animal Farm. He ignored the television noise and general activity there as he read. The book was taking darker and darker turns and he found that he was enjoying it: he could lose himself in it.