Paula Hillman, author

Once I’ve finished novel number seven (and I’m not far off) I have resolved to finish a first draft of my teaching memoir. I posted a sample chapter on the website quite a while ago. Since then, writing for Bloodhound has been full-on. I have done little bits of twiddling around with an opening memoir chapter, and found this, which is one of my attempts. All names have been changed, obvs…!!!

First days

1987

If I had lived another life, I might have been a scientist. Or a writer. Either of those might have allowed me status while living the life of an introvert. Instead, I find myself standing at the swing doors of the school entrance, casting my worried glance over the peeling mint-green façade and wondering what on earth I’m doing. Responsibility has become a presence. It sits on my shoulder and whispers in my ear.

           You’ve changed, but you’re still not good enough for this.

           It’s a beautiful morning, full of soft golden light. Trees are dropping their leaves and it’s chilly enough to be wearing a coat. A car pulls in through the school gates. It’s a white Austin Maestro, gleaming, thin red stripe down either side. It parks alongside my Renault Campus. Also white, but the plimsoll line is green. The Maestro is Kelvin’s car. Kelvin Jones. My boss.

           ‘Morning,’ he calls as he slams his car door. Thunk. ‘Did you have a good weekend?’

This kind of small-talk is new to me. I was a kid just a few years ago, on the other side of staffroom doors, knocking and trembling and trying not to inhale the thick coffee-and-smoke haze.

           ‘Yes, thanks,’ I tell him, and fill out my answer with a smile. He won’t want to know I’d cried with guilt and fear as I tried to make up for being a working mother. This is the guy who’s given me a chance. He should get the best of me. I follow him as he pushes open a pair of swing doors leading to the scruffy reception area. He’s a tall man, is Kelvin, and only nine years my senior. I’ve yet to see him wear anything but a dark grey work suit with matching shirt and tie. There’s a slight twang of his Birmingham roots in the way he speaks. He’s the biggest optimist I’ve ever met.

         ‘The planners are coming this morning,’ he tells me. ‘Now I’m on a permanent contract, I’ve got big plans for this place.’ He cocks his head in a meaningful way. ‘Close it down? That was never going to happen.’

          ‘What’s first?’ I ask.

          ‘Pulling down the far end of the building.’ His laugh has undertones of satire. I wouldn’t choose to argue with him. Fortunately, we see things in the same way. Unlike some of the crusty old staff that had been here for years before his appointment as headteacher.

           ‘Why pull it down?’ Though we both know it’s a case of pull it before it falls.

           ‘I want a school field. That’s where it’s going to be.’

The school is in one of the poorest areas of the town, of the county, in fact. It is surrounded by Victorian terraced housing, in varying sizes and states of repair and is bordered by the town centre. There are no green areas.

           ‘Do you think that will be allowed?’

           Kelvin stretches his eyes. ‘You know what I think about that.’

I do. He has a vision for this school, is on a rescue mission, and what’s allowed has never been an issue. I’m with him all the way.

           ‘We’ll have a field by next autumn then.’ I smile.

            ‘We will.’ He leans on the door. ‘See you later.’

There’s a gloom inside the school, a Victorian darkness. It is all long, bitumen-floored corridors, and fireplaces converted to rudimentary libraries. Archaic books and spider plants complete the look. There is a smell, too. Of galvanised buckets and disinfectant, overlayed with the caretaker’s brand of tobacco. He’s here now, walking towards me.

           ‘Hiya, love,’ he mumbles, cigarette stuck to his bottom lip and the same navy-blue suit he always wears.

           ‘Hi,’ I reply. This guy is part of the fabric of the school, he is the bones of the place, its blood. He lives in the caretaker’s house, also a Victorian throwback. To me, at twenty-four years of age, he seems an ancient relic. His wife and daughter work alongside, looking after the site: their word is law.

           I push open my classroom door. My classroom. I didn’t think I’d ever become a teacher. I’d done enough to jeopardise it: swapping university courses; having terrible homesickness; having a baby halfway through my degree; marrying halfway through my degree without a penny to my name and squatting in the flat above my parents’ house. But Kelvin took a chance on me. I’d completed my final teaching practice at his school, and it had felt like coming home.

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