The Rye Man Read Online Free PDF Page B

into her corner.
    She was in her late forties, had slumped into overweight but wore expensive and stylish clothes. She had tightly-permed hair which was coloured a mauvish tint and blue-framed glasses with thick lenses that made her eyes round and owl-shaped. From their first introduction she had made it obvious that she would not be buying whatever it was he had to sell, adopting a kind of superior weariness, a spurious wisdom which suggested she had arrived at a state of excellence which needed neither modification nor appraisal. There was something almost fascinating about her awfulness and he was intrigued to see her in front of children. They sat in rows at double desks in straight rows, silent but surreptitiously watching and listening, obviously conditioned in how to behave in front of a visitor because no one spoke, not even a furtive whisper behind hands. They were working on some exercise out of textbooks. From the patterns on the pages it looked like maths. In one corner was a nature table, furbished with the remains of last year’s collection – dried up birds’ nests, some jagged cacti, something that looked like a sheep’s skull, assorted bones and a few wilted plants. On the back walls were three science posters, one of the corners flapping over where the drawing pin was missing, and faded pages of children’s writing. Looking around, he felt like someone who had just purchased a property and found his first piece of damp rot.
    She was talking down to him, jokingly berating her pupils’ inability to master some new concept but he hardly heard what she was saying for thinking of what he was going to do with her. She was talking about his mother – she was the choir mistress of his mother’s church – and it was the second time she had spoken about her. It was her way of saying, ‘I know who you are and where you come from.’ He made some polite reply then cut across her line of conversation with a question about the boy in the corridor. She flustered a little and mumbled something which made little sense and he pressed home his momentary advantage by diverting suddenly into another avenue of thought, then excused himself and started to leave. At the door he paused.
    â€˜Mrs Haslett, could you please send Simon Porter to my room.’
    â€˜Now?’
    â€˜Yes, please.’ As he spoke, he smiled deliberately at her then was gone.
    After the boy had left he remembered the two occasions he had been sent to the headmaster’s office. The first was in the company of James McMaster and Harry Gordon for having broken a window with a catapult. Gordon had fired the deadly shot but he and McMaster had been fingered as accomplices. The memory made him smile, but it faded as he remembered the thin white welt of pain which quivered the fingertips of both hands, and when the letter had arrived home his mother had taken the wooden spoon to the soft parts of his legs. The second time had been at the height of his temporary fame to receive a commendation for his part in the story that was on everyone’s lips. He even had his name read out in assembly and a photographer from the local paper had arrived one afternoon to take his picture. It had been taken against the side wall of the school and when it appeared the following week his mother had given off to him for not having the wit to brush his hair before it was taken.
    A small town hero. He remembered the feeling very clearly, the handshakes from older men, the whispers in church, the free bag of clove rock Mr McFaul had given him in his shop. He had worn his pride like a little badge – been pointed out to the uninformed and generally made a fuss of. He had lived off it for maybe a year, trading on it, cashing it in when other funds were low, and even now he knew some of the older people in the community still identified him by reference to it. His mother had kept all the newspaper cuttings and pasted them into a