The Smoke

The Smoke

London, 1941

As usual, Bill woke at dawn and was driven out to his aircraft. The order to scramble had been given and he felt the familiar tug of fear and excitement. He checked his jacket pocket for the doll his sister had knitted as a lucky charm. She told him she’d made two dolls but his was the best. He felt the rough cloth and bumpy stitches, complete with tiny bag and hat, beneath his fingers, and smiled. The thought of his little sister’s face gazing up at him the last time they met, brought a lump to his throat. It gave him the strength he needed to see this thing through.

“You will come back, won’t you Bill?”

“I’ll do my best.”

They both knew his return lay in the hands of a higher power. The odds were stacked against him.

Then he got into his plane. It soared in the air, the clouds dusting the wing tips as he met a brilliant crimson sky.

***

The air in the staff room is foggy with smoke. It sticks to the walls, even creeping its way into the school corridors, but only the non-smokers notice this.

Beneath their nicotine cloud, the 1980’s smokers indulge in their favourite topic: namely, the trials and tribulations of their beleaguered colleague, Jane Weeble, only a few years off retirement.

“She’ll be along any minute now, tottering in her heels. Beats me why she wears them,” the maths teacher observes tartly.

“What do you mean by that, Denis? Why shouldn’t she wear them if they make her happy?” Brenda, the history teacher asks.

“I don’t mean anything by it, Brenda. It’s just they’re strangely at odds with that faded blue cardigan and dress with the pocket she wears.  I often think she looks like something from the war years.”

“A refugee, maybe?” Sally, the sociology teacher pipes up.

“That’s it. Exactly.”

“Maybe she wears them to give her height. I mean she’s such a slip of a thing, when you come to think of it. It’s not surprising she can’t hold discipline in the class.” This observation comes from Lesley, a geography teacher, who only holds it together by a hair’s breadth herself.

“It’s sad really,” Sally says. “She has a first-class degree in English. She obviously loves her subject.”

“I don’t know how Laura puts up with it. After all, she is Head of English. Didn’t one of the girls climb out of the window during one of Jane’s lessons? Jennifer Hartless, wasn’t it? Now, there’s a troubled girl, if there ever was one,” Lesley adds.

“The bane of Jane’s life.”

“Not Laura’s though. She adores Laura.”

“All the girls do.”

“Apparently, Laura heard the commotion from the next class and had to step in to calm things down. They were chanting the usual “Weebles wobble, but they don’t fall down.” Beats me why Laura doesn’t get rid of her.”

“Don’t be unkind, Lesley,” Brenda interjects.

“I’m not being unkind, Brenda.  I know she thinks of you as her friend, but you’ve got to admit Jane’s a liability.”

“Grangey doesn’t get rid of Weeble because she doesn’t want to throw a colleague under the bus, especially one who seems so frail. In the meantime, she keeps her on and inflicts her on the low stream groups – where she can do the least damage.” Sally remarks acidly.

“You’re her friend, Brenda. Does she ever talk about her discipline problems with you?” Denis wants to know.

“Not in great detail. Only obliquely. I don’t like to humiliate her by bringing it up myself. She’s a nice person. Very witty when you get to know her.”

“Being nice doesn’t cut it when it comes to getting the pupils in order, though does it?”

“No, Sally. It doesn’t.”

“The days are fast approaching when giving them a quick slap or threatening them with the slipper, are going.”

“What are you talking about, Denis? We’ve never used the slipper here, that I’m aware of. Not even in the seventies.”

“Is that how long you’ve been here?”

Brenda grimaces.

“I wouldn’t be surprised if they don’t ban smoking too. Our one refuge in this dingy establishment.”

“They’ve known for some time that it’s bad for you. The medical evidence is stacking up,” Brenda says dolefully

“Well, give it up then.”

“I enjoy it too much.”

“But back to Jane…”

“What about her?”

“I don’t know. She fascinates me. There’s a kind of heroic quality to her, wouldn’t you say? I mean battling on, in spite of everything. I don’t think I could put up with prolonged abuse hurled at me like that.”

“I must admit. If it were me, I’d have caved in years ago. If you haven’t got their attention in the first minute, you’ve lost them for ever.” Sally can’t resist putting in her pennyworth again.

“Wasn’t her brother some kind of war hero, Brenda?” Denis asks.

“She had an older brother who flew a Hurricane during the London Blitz. Very successfully. Must have saved many lives. Just think, you might not be sitting here, if it wasn’t for him. Your family hail from north London, don’t they, Denis?

“Some of my relatives still do. They had to get out when the bombing got bad. They ended spending two years in Edinburgh with Scottish relations.”

“Apparently, Jane’s brother was on one of his final flights when he was shot down. She adored him. I’m not sure she ever got over it.”

“Shush. She’s coming over now.”

***

Jane’s cheeks are oddly bright.

“What are you all conspiring about today?”

“The idea that one day, smoking in public places will be banned, including this staffroom. Our only haven. The last refuge for the sane.”

Jane shudders, her eyes the colour of cornflowers. “What a horrible thought.”

“Come and sit down. You look done in. Here, have one of mine,” Brenda offers.

A collective groan goes up when there’s a knock at the door. Eventually, one of the less jaded teachers who is seated with a newspaper at the main table, feels obliged to get up and answer.  Even the hard-nut students feel wary of approaching this inner sanctum. A room cloaked in mystery as well as smoke, you only come here if you have to. 

“Oh, thank you, just what I need.” As dopamine and numerous other chemicals flood her brain and are released into her body, Jane’s face lights up and for a second, she turns into the woman she might have been. 

“How’s it going today, or shouldn’t I ask?”

“You shouldn’t ask, definitely not.”

“Oh! One of those days?”

“You could say that.”

Brenda checks her watch. “Still, only two more hours and it will be over, eh?” That’s about as close as they get to referring to Jane’s troubles in the classroom.

“Yes. Not long.”

Jane inhales to forget. Another ten minutes and she will have crossed the Rubicon. Her lip will quiver and the hell that is her teaching life will commence. No matter how hard she tries, she cannot get the class in order. 

But for the moment, that seems another lifetime away. Right now, inhaling hundreds of minute carcinogens into a pair of overstretched lungs, a memory stirs of sharing her first ever cigarette with her middle brother, Tom. They had been illicitly inspecting the ruins of a bomb site in one of the ancient London churches on a Saturday afternoon in the late spring of 1941. The smokiness of fires still blazing in the city hung everywhere. By then, Jane was aged eight and Tom, was eleven. 

“Here, give it a go, sis. You really have to suck on it. Like this, see.” She watched spell bound as Tom breathed in manfully.

“You look like dad when you do that.” Their father was too old to go to war, though he was much admired in the community for his work as a warden. He practically lived in a helmet with a W painted on the back, forever handing out numerous gas masks and making sure everyone got to the nearest shelter when an air raid was on, thereby saving many lives. No one dared let even the slightest hint of light escape from their windows, or there’d be a roar of “Put that light out now, stupid sods,” followed by a loud hammering. Jane was terrified of him.

“Like this?”  Her body was wracked by a coughing fit.

“You get used to it, the more you do it. Look. You can make circles in the air.” Tom proudly demonstrated how it should be done.

“Mum says we’re too young to be smoking. And dad wouldn’t like it. You know that.”

“Ah, stop wheedling. Dad smokes like a chimney when he gets half a chance. There’s a war on. We have to grab what little bit of happiness we can. That’s what Bert says.”

“Who’s Bert?” 

“You’ll meet him in a minute. Anyway, what they can’t see can’t hurt them.” 

Jane remembered following her brother through an archway into a dim recess where they reached an empty sarcophagus. 

“Ah, he’s not here,” her brother said, disappointed.

“Are you sure he’s real?” Jane suspected her brother had made him up to scare her. As if she wasn’t scared enough already.

“Of course, he’s real! He’s been sleeping here. Looked like Dracula in that tomb, he did. He had lots of spare roll-ups on him. Don’t know where he got them from, but we could have cadged one.”

“He must be dotty. He shouldn’t be handing them out to children.” Jane couldn’t get out of the vault fast enough. Her brother ambled after her. She looked up at the sky longingly. “I wish Bill was here.”

“He’ll be somewhere in the skies defending the country in his trusty Hurricane. He calls it his workhorse. He might even have been trying to shoot the planes down when they hit this church.”

“They’d never have hit it if he’d been flying,” Jane said loyally.

Jane squeezed the lucky charm in her pocket. She’d knitted two identical miniature pilot boys and dressed them in cloth and string. She’d given the best one to Bill and kept the other one for herself. “He’ll be alright as long as he keeps hold of his lucky charm.”

“What? That raggedy old thing you knitted for him.”

“He promised to take it with him whenever he flew. So long as he keeps hold of that, he’ll be safe. I know he will.”

***

Jane closes down the memory before it becomes too much. 

“Well, I must get to my lesson. She daintily stubs out the last of the cigarette into an ashtray and rises shakily from her seat.

“I hope they’re not too ghastly.” Brenda offers a sympathetic smile.

***

Laura Grange breezes along armed with books, impressive in a lilac power suit. Smiling stiffly, she briefly crosses paths with Jane at the staffroom door.

“Hello.” Unable to say the younger woman’s name, Jane despises the timidity in her voice. Laura is the kind of teacher she once aspired to be. Vibrant, with a successful career and marriage and two children, always immaculate.

“Ah, there you are Jane.” Can you carry on with Romeo and Juliet this afternoon, please?”

“Yes, of course.”

“By the way, Jennifer Hartless won’t be at school for a few weeks. Her form teacher told me she’s off with glandular fever.”

“Ah, I see.” Overwhelmingly relieved, Jane can’t quite bring herself to meet the younger woman’s eyes, but the absence of such a disruptive pupil, will certainly make things easier. 

On stepping into the classroom, Jane catches the eye of Penny Jackson, a girl with a cleft lip who has been equally tormented by the acid-tongued Jennifer. A pupil who genuinely wants to learn. For once, Jane has a chance to teach the subject she loves without too many interruptions.

***

Back in the staffroom, Jane gazes longingly at the smoke-filled corner where her colleagues sit sprawled puffing away in smoggy contentment. Only she’s unable to join them. 

After a while, Brenda stubs out her cigarette and comes over.

“What are you doing hiding over here, Jane? What’s the matter? You look pale! Are you alright?”

“I’m afraid I can’t join you, much as I want to. You see, I’ve decided to give up smoking.”

“Have you? Really?”

“Yes, for good.”

“It’s something we should all do. I mean, we all know it’s not good for us.”

“The difference is I have to give it up. I’ve got lung cancer.” A tear slides down a pale cheek which Jane hurriedly brushes away. 

Brenda’s face drops. “Oh, my dear. I’m so sorry. How long have you got?”

“A few months, maybe less. There’s nothing they can do. It’s gone too far. My time is running out. But if I stop smoking now, I may have a bit longer.”

“I’m so sorry,” Brenda says again. How feeble the words sound.

“Don’t be,” her friend says surprising her. “You see, for the first time in a long time, I’m free.”

“Free?” Brenda tries to keep the incredulity out of her voice.

“Yes, free. It no longer matters if I’m a lousy teacher who can’t keep discipline in the classroom. It no longer matters what Laura Grange thinks. I no longer care what anyone thinks about me. For the first time in my life, I’m free. I want to shout it from the rooftops.”

Click-clacking along the corridor in her stilettos, her one hallmark to vanity, Jane has a sudden vision of her older brother, the only person she’s ever loved and how she will soon be free to join him. Her hand goes to her pocket, she traces the lumpy little doll and smiles radiantly.