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my advice, Tom – my sympathetic advice. I said take a rest, a period of leave …’
    (And come back to no bloody History Department.)
    ‘If you chose to persist—’
    He gets up, taking deep breaths. He stands by the window, hands in pockets, leaning, sideways-on, in the angle formed by the window-frame and a filing cabinet. Four-thirty. Lessons over. Dusk enveloping the playground.
    ‘It just so happens, Tom, that I agree with the powers-that-be. Equipping for the real world. It just so happens that I think that’s what we’re here for.’ A demonstrative hand waved towards the playground. ‘Send just one of these kids out into the world with a sense of his or her usefulness, with an ability to apply, with practical knowledge and not a rag-bag of pointless information—’
    (So there we have it.)
    A good, a diligent, a persevering man. Truly. Sometimes when I leave school I see Lewis’s light still on, on the first floor, suspended like a lantern amid the darkened classrooms. He cares; he strives; he endeavours. And where he can’t prevail he worries, as if in penitential reparation. Worries for his pupils’ sake. Worries that in the 1980s he can’t provide them with golden prospects. Worry’s donated him an ulcer, which he douses with whisky from a filing cabinet (I know about that too).
    A brief sketch of our Headmaster:
    Once upon a time, in the bright mid-sixties … But you won’t remember the bright mid-sixties. OK to be revolutionary then, quite possible to be revolutionary then. The product (let’s put it into historical perspective) of temporary affluence, educational expansion and a short-term good outlook. A sort of revolution of the young … The period also of the cold war, the Cuba crisis and the intercontinental ballistic missile …
    Once upon a time, in the bright mid-sixties, when you were being born and Lewis, apart from being appointed Head (his only rival a history teacher, a senior man who none the less wanted to remain in the classroom), was busy begetting his own little ones, there was plenty of future on offer. Good times for headmasters. Our school a new ship bound for the Promised Land. Lewis, our doughty captain, a teacher of physics and chemistry (technology then in its white-hot days), confidently striding the deck.
    It’s still his ship. But he’s no longer captain. He’s become – a figurehead. Steadfast and staunch, but still a figurehead. Tap him. Beneath the varnish, solid wood (and worms of worry). Our ship’s figurehead is a replica of a headmaster of fifteen years ago.
    Watch him at morning assembly. (You do? And listen too? Yes, yes, he casts a certain spell.) You won’t catch old Lulu looking glum. You won’t see him up on the dais without his chin held high and determinedly jutting, a smile and a joke to hand. He sees that as his role now: hold firm, keep smiling. But it’s hard work, masking the marks of worry. Gives you ulcers.
    And he’s good with kids. Has three of his own. Corners you with them in the staff room (my David, my Cathy – ). At a private dinner party (guests Tom and Mary Crick) he announces, not a little worse for drink, that he’s considering installing a domestic fallout shelter: ‘For the kids, you know, for the kids’ sake …’ If he can no longer be a bountiful Santa Claus, if there are no longer enough of those gift-wrapped promises to go round, he’s still free with pats on the head and genial exhortation. Just work hard at your lessons, be good in class. Your education will save you. A school is a microcosm, so if the school works well … He’s good with kids.
    It’s just the cares of grown-ups, it’s just the addled adult world he’s not so keen on. He wants to be close to his pupils: keeps his distance from his staff. When they have problems they get short shrift …
    He must have worked it out with the Authority. Seized the excuse of their pressure to impose cut-backs. The man’s got to go. No question of that.