Between the Prison and the Sewage Works by Maryline Suchley (snow like ashes txt) 📖

and the thought of being stuck with him and his freak friend Piles wasn’t the least bit appealing. As Mara headed out of the science area, she met Mat in the corridor and he asked if she was going to the pub.

‘I was thinking about it but didn’t want to go down on my own’ Mara replied.

‘Me too, how about we go down together,’ he suggested.

‘Agreed.’

On arrival at the Pig’s Gut, Boyo was finishing a pint and standing at the bar ready to order another. Mara and Mat walked over and stood beside him waiting to be served.

‘This is my local,’ piped Boyo.

‘How nice,’ Mara replied, looking away as if admiring the surroundings.

‘The red velvet wallpaper is so classy and I love the plywood tables and chairs,’ Mara smirked looking up at Mat, ‘Oh and look they even have authentic grime on the floor!’

The bar man finally arrived holding a grubby rag and appeared pissed off that he had customers. He looked at Boyo and nodded.

‘Pint of Stella, please Bill,’ Boyo replied importantly.

Bill didn’t seem to acknowledge Boyo’s request but took his used glass, flicked the beer tap down, filled it and unceremoniously passed it back. Meanwhile Boyo had attentively placed the correct money on the bar, and was waiting for some kind of positive signal, like a dog waiting for a pat from his owner. Bill slid the coins off the bar and put them in the till. He turned his attention to Mara and Mat.

‘I’ll have a Stella,’ Mat said.

‘Me too,’ Mara added. Somehow it seemed easier. Bill didn’t look like he appreciated people mucking him around with choices. While Bill pulled the pints Mara looked over to the group that had formed in the corner. Amongst the teachers was Daniel talking vibrantly to a young girl called Lucy, who seemed impressed by his verbal diarrhoea.

Oh no! There are only two seats and one’s next to that vile creation Piles. She thought, looking at him hunched over and chuckling to himself. The other seat was next to Roger who was contentedly smiling at the space in front of him.

‘Wow, this really is the in crowd,’ whispered Mara to Mat as they walked over to the group.

‘Hi Roger. How’s your day been?’ Mara asked, as she sat down next to him.

‘Good. What about your first week?’ he replied snapping out of his daydream.

‘Not bad.’

As Mara continued to chat to Roger more teachers came into the pub. One of whom was Steffi the media studies teacher she had seen waltz into the library on the first day. Steffi wore a long flowing red dress and was accompanied by her dreary friend, who Mara had now decided was a genetically engineered human mouse creation. Steffi continued to draw attention by talking loudly to Bill about what she wanted to drink.

‘Oh what shall I have? Wine! No. No. I’ll have a Bloody Mary, haven’t had one of those for weeks! Marvellous! A Bloody Mary barman.’

Bill was not amused. He frowned, visibly annoyed at having to mix a drink. Steffi was now scanning the room for someone worthy of her company. Bill Poured tomato juice into the vodka, handed her the glass and waited for payment .

‘It’s missing something barman?’ Steffi said after taking a sip.

‘Oh my friend is paying’.

He turned to Emma and asked her what she wanted without even acknowledging Steffi’s grievance.

Without a word to her friend, Steffi literally spun on her heel and headed over to Mara’s table leaving her friend to pay. The fact there were no seats at the table did not deter her, She dragged a chair from another table and squeezed into a space between Boyo and Mat; making waving gestures for both of them to move apart and let her in.

‘Well hello everyone, it’s just marvellous that everyone’s here, new and old staff alike. I’m Steffi, if you don’t already know, the drama stroke media studies teacher,’ she said lifting her arms and making quotation marks with her fingers.

She’s got crazy tattooed across her forehead! Mara concluded.

To Mara’s surprise the sleeping teacher whom she had seen in the staff room at briefing walked in. He got himself a drink and joined the table.

‘Hi everyone,’ he yawned.

‘It’s unusual to see you here Tony?’ Roger asked.

‘Thought I’d come and join you for a couple, Betty’s away visiting her sister this weekend, so I can do the shopping tomorrow instead.’

He moved a seat and sat next to Emma who seemed to squeak when she shuffled her chair to make space for Tony.

The next couple of hours passed relatively quickly; naturally Tony had fallen asleep and no one seemed surprised.

Steffi had become louder the more intoxicated she got and was now knocking back her drinks at an alarming rate. She attempted to take over the conversation many times, at one point stating that people were afraid of her because she was a confident modern woman. She seemed to have taken a shine to Mat and kept firing questions at him.

‘Do you know how many women are in the senior management team?’ she asked aggressively.

‘Uh, I don’t know,’ he replied.

‘One, that’s how many! That’s of course if you can call her a woman!’ Steffi scoffed.

‘It’s a sexist school you know,’ she added for her audience.

Her outbursts increasingly were becoming erratic and Mat was too polite to tell her to shut it.

Steffi was not the only person getting louder as the evening wore on. Daniel competed adequately with his vulgar story, now starting to catch the attention of those around the table. He was giving an account of how he indecently exposed himself on his best mate’s stag night. Then, as if encouraged by everyone’s silence, further revealed how they had managed to push a toy weeble up the rectum of the groom to be.

‘When I told the story at the wedding in my best man’s speech, I, get this, held up the offending weeble!’ Daniel bellowed unashamedly.

Uncertain and hesitant laughs came from around the table. Even Steffi had stopped in her tracks bemused at Daniel’s tale. Mara who of course was used to his fiction on teaching practice, knew he either fabricated events or exaggerated the truth and wasn’t the least bit shocked.

Daniel’s fairy tale just about ended the Friday after school debrief. Although to be fair to Daniel it was almost over anyway, as Mat was itching to get away from Steffi, Emma had had enough of being ignored by her friend and looked frustrated and Tony woke up, rubbed his eyes and said he was feeling tired and should head home to bed. Daniel and Lucy were the first to go sharing a taxi home. Piles and Boyo however, were very drunk and seemed deep in conversation about the acting abilities of John Holmes in his detective movies.

The weekend was a blur. Mara had wasted most of it catching up on boring stuff like the washing, as well as easing her depressive state with red wine.

It was now Sunday night and she felt a spasm of despondency as the prospect of going into school the next day drew closer.

The alarm cried to the sound of pastor Cosmos preaching to his flock. Mara looked outside her bedroom window to see a grey wet street.

‘Great! Crap weather to match the crap day I’m probably going to have,’ she moaned.

It was far too early in the morning but she had to catch the seven am bus. She drearily carried out her morning routine and waited at the bus stop. The journey itself was a visual fusion of tatty buildings, dirt and rubbish. How could people live here? No wonder people turn to drink and drugs, this place reeks of no hope. Jesus, it’s hard to feel happy in this hole. What a way to start the day! She reflected whilst inanely staring out of the window.

As Mara walked in through the gates, Daniel drove in behind her. He beeped and waved. Mara’s half hearted nod in response seemed to go over his head. He jumped out the car and enthusiastically said good morning, followed by chatter about his weekend.

‘Had a great Saturday night, got into a cool bar, managed to blag my way in. Lots of nice chicks there,’

‘Really!’ Mara replied.

Daniel continued talking about how irresistible he was to the opposite sex.

She thought about asking him what happened with Lucy on Friday night and then decided she didn’t really want to know.

To Mara’s relief, he said was heading to the prep room.

‘I’m going to get a coffee from the staffroom.’ Mara replied.

‘See ya,’ Daniel saluted.

In the staff room Mara checked her pigeon hole. The only item was a hand scribbled note from Jim informing her that she had to attend a science professional development course on Thursday. This piece of good luck however was soon eclipsed by the absentee cover list attached to the notice board. She would be teaching a lesson for Mr Manuelle. Steve Manuelle was second in command to Tony in the religious education department and had according to Jeremy mythical status; not many people knew who he was, they just knew he existed as his pigeon hole was never emptied and staff were always covering his lessons. Some teachers would routinely put rubbish in his pigeon hole as a form of retaliation.

An uneventful morning was interrupted by a fight breaking out in Roger’s class room, but according to the laboratory technicians, such incidents were normal, occurring a few times a week depending on how bored the students were.

Mara begrudgingly covered Mr Manuelle’s senior RE class. The work set by him was easy; a simple activity involving cutting out pictures of religious figures like Jesus, Moses, Mary and matching them to a name, such as Jesus, Moses or Mary, then colouring in the pictures. For those who needed extending, they were instructed to learn how to spell the names of those religious figures.

Shit, this work must have taken him ages to plan! Mara thought shaking her head in amusement.

The afternoon was a little more action packed with the fire alarm being set off; a frequent event that no one seemed to take seriously judging from the cheers reverberating around the school. Unlike previous false alarms this time there had actually been a genuine reason. One of the students in Roger’s lesson had stolen his reel of magnesium ribbon, set fire to it and thrown it in his cupboard while another student distracted him. Roger realising his cupboard was smoking, tried to put out the fire with the extinguisher, but the science technician had panicked and broke the glass setting off the alarm. The students reacted by running out the room screaming ‘help’. Despite Roger putting out the fire in his cupboard, the fire brigade had to attend. The whole incident had sent the students into a frenzy, which made the afternoon extremely difficult for all teachers.

Mara welcomed the bell to signal the end of school. Unfortunately there was still a meeting to get through before she could go home.

The staffroom quickly filled with teachers. Roger was amongst the first to settle in a seat and Mara sat next to him.

‘Another day at the office Rog?’ Mara remarked.

‘Oh yeah,’ he chucked, unperturbed by the afternoon’s events.

You’ve got to admire him, Mara thought. He must be pretty thick skinned.

The meeting was predictably mind numbing. Mara drifted in and out of consciousness occasionally looking up to see Joyce scribbling relentlessly on the board, while Jim talked down to the teachers whilst scanning the room trying to catch someone not listening. Floating back in to the room she heard him finishing.

‘Finally! No students should be allowed out of class during lessons, unless they have a note. Oh one more item, Ben Butterworth has been stood down for three days following his activities this afternoon. Meeting closed.’

Thank God that’s over, though Mara.

Thursday’s course for science teachers from the six local schools soon arrived. Professional development was a double-edged sword; it was a chance to escape teaching but the day was always lengthy, tedious,