bad but they can make just about anything seem bad, they can turn anything so it’s bad. Besides, it’s not what they say, is it? It’s that they’re saying it. And if they’re teasing you, everyone else is ignoring you, even your mates, even your best friends, and those days, that term or however long it goes on for, because for some people it never stops, it just goes on and on until God, I don’t know, until you leave school I guess, or until Donovan… Well. That whole time, though, you could be surrounded by people, your friends like, people you thought were your friends, and the sun could be shining and there could be a million pounds just lying there in the gutter and still you’d feel like the most miserable, the most unlucky, the most loneliest person in the world. You’re a policewoman. I don’t suppose anyone ever bullies you. But trust me. Being bullied: it bites.
So I felt sorry for him. Which is weird too now. I felt sorry for him, this bloke who’s gone and shot these people, these people who haven’t done anything, except Donovan, these people who most of them are still just kids. Even Miss Staples was all right, she was nice. She got some grief about her name too, now I think about it, but she handled it right, she just laughed it off.
Bumfluff, though. He didn’t laugh. Even if he had of laughed I don’t think it would of helped. Instead of laughing, he did the one thing he never should of done.
But that was later. For a while he kept on going. He’s like, okay, yes, thank you, that’s enough. And most of the kids stop, the normal kids, but Donovan and his mates carry on, not as loud, not as obvious but they carry on. Bumfluff tries to get them interested, he says to Gi, you know it’s funny you should say that, what you said just then about immigrants.
And Gi coughs and says, immigrants aren’t funny, sir, immigrants are a serious problem cough. They’re a pest. Cough.
No, that’s not what I meant. It’s funny – it’s interesting – because we’re going to touch on that subject—
You’re not supposed to touch us, sir, says Donovan. It’s not legal. Cough.
The subject, says Bumfluff, we’re going to talk about that subject, about immigration and how we’re all immigrants really, we’re all descended from—
Are you calling me a Paki? says Gi and the rest of us are like, shit, you can’t say that, and we’re looking over at Liyoni because she’s from Sri Lanka or Somalia or somewhere but she’s not saying anything obviously, she’s just staring at her desk.
No, Horace Morris, I’m not. And please don’t use that word.
Which word, sir? Cough.
You know which word.
I don’t, sir. Honestly. Cough. Tell me, sir. Say it.
I will not say it and neither will you. If I hear you saying it again you’ll be explaining your choice of vocabulary in front of the headmaster.
Gi shuts up after that and it’s quiet for a minute but then Donovan, he does this cough and his timing is brilliant and he does it really loudly and hardly disguises it at all. It was like… Well, I won’t do it. But you can imagine it, can’t you?
So now Bumfluff sits down and he’s got his eyebrows raised and he’s got this expression on his face, you know that expression that teachers have, like it’s your time you’re wasting here not mine. So he’s sitting there with his eyebrows and it’s not making any difference, the coughing’s just getting louder and more and more people are doing it. I did it too. Just once. Samantha, she was sitting next to me, she did it first but she hid her mouth behind her hand. No one would of heard her but me. I did it and I did it properly and Samantha was like Lizzie! and Donovan saw me and he laughed and at the time I thought it was funny but afterwards, I dunno. Afterwards I wished I hadn’t of.
He’s sitting there for a while. He’s sitting there and it looks for a minute or two like he knows what he’s doing, like he thinks he knows what he’s doing. But it doesn’t stop. The coughing. The normal kids stop but Donovan, Gi, Scott, Nigel and that lot, they don’t stop. So Bumfluff gets up after a while and says enough, that’s enough, and he’s looking at Donovan as he speaks but Donovan just holds out his palms. See, Donovan and Gi are on one side of the room and Scott and Nigel are on the other so when Bumfluff is looking at one pair he can’t see what the other pair are doing. He’s trying to watch the lot of them but he’s like a kid in front of a tennis match who can’t keep up with the ball.
Someone throws something. I don’t know what it is but it’s wet. It’s wet and it hits Bumfluff right on the cheek, just above his beard. It makes this sound. Imagine chucking a fistful of mud at a wall. That’s the sound it makes.
Bumfluff’s reaction: that’s what makes it worse. He’s shocked, I suppose. You would be shocked, wouldn’t you, if someone had chucked something at you and it hit you and you hadn’t seen it coming. He gives this yelp. His voice, it’s not that deep anyway, but this yelp is like a kid’s yelp, it’s like a little girl’s. I’d be embarrassed if I made that sound, do you know what I mean? I don’t even know if I could make that sound. No, it was higher than that. Wait. No, higher than that. See, I can’t do it. And as well as yelping, Bumfluff does this spasm, like you see special kids doing sometimes when they can’t control their limbs. Like this.
We laugh. Everyone laughs. You would of laughed too, I promise you. You wouldn’t of been able to help it.
It must of been quite loud. It must of been loud before then but by now it’s been going on for a bit of time. I suppose that’s why Miss Hobbs comes in. She knocks and she doesn’t wait and she opens the door. She says, Mr Szajkowski, is everything all right in here? We can hear all this commotion two classrooms away.
I can’t really do her voice.
Anyway, Bumfluff, he’s Hubba Bubba pink. I don’t know if he’s angry or embarrassed or hyperventilating or what but even through his beard you can make out the colour of his skin. That’s when he leaves. Which is basically the worst thing he could of done. Miss Hobbs is standing there with one hand on the doorframe and one hand holding the door and Bumfluff says, excuse me, and picks up his briefcase and says excuse me again and he’s gone. Just like that. And Donovan, I can see the look on his face. And I don’t know whether he’s been expecting Bumfluff to go but while the rest of us are just sitting there half dumb, Donovan, he gives this little wave.
Bye sir, he says. Right in front of Hobbs and everything.
.
‘He wasn’t the victim, Lucia. No one is going to accept that he was the victim.’ Philip offered her a cigarette. He frowned when she shook her head. ‘Since when?’
‘Since New Year.’
‘You’re not jogging as well, are you? You look skinny. I can’t stand it when people give up smoking and take up jogging. It’s bad for their health. It’s bad for the economy.’
‘Don’t let me stop you,’ Lucia said.
‘No, I couldn’t possibly. I’d feel like I were goading you.’
‘Really, it’s fine. It doesn’t bother me. I’d rather you smoked.’
But Philip put the cigarette case back into the pocket of his shirt. ‘You take my point, don’t you? This man killed three children. Children, Lucia. He killed their teacher. A mother. Even the
‘He was not a monster, Philip. It was monstrous, what he did, but he was not a monster. And since when did you start reading the
‘I don’t. One of our paralegals does. Or did, rather. I found a reason to fire him.’
‘Then you did him a favour. Probably saved his soul.’
Philip retrieved his cigarettes. ‘I just want to hold one. I won’t light it, I promise.’
Lucia waved. ‘Go ahead.’ She watched Philip open the case and prise a cigarette free. He let it nestle in his hand, where it looked as much a part of him as his little finger.
‘So maybe he wasn’t a monster,’ Philip said. ‘Maybe he was just crazy. Maybe it was this heat that drove him nuts. Maybe it’s the heat that’s affecting you.’
The weekend was turning out to be as oppressive as the weathermen had predicted. The sunlight was thin,
