One Of Many

Mr Govern had helped lots of young people. Would he even remember who I was?

STILL want to do this?” My wife, Cara, puts her hand over mine, her dark eyes studying my face. “We can go back home if you want.”

Feeling the pressure of her fingers, I smile.

“I’m fine. I just want to make sure I do this right.”

Mr Govern’s bungalow is at the end of a cul-de-sac. It’s exactly as I imagined it to be, with a neatly mown front lawn and a straight path to the front door, edged with vivid bedding plants.

Neatness and order is something I remember from my teenage days at Thomas Blackburn Comprehensive, when Mr Govern ran his English lessons with military precision.

Even his table at the front of the class had been tidy: the paperclips and rubbers stored neatly in a metal tin, and a plastic in-tray waiting for finished homework.

Strict, my mum had called him. The kids in my gang had called him much worse.

We’ve been sitting in the car for a while now, outside Mr Govern’s bungalow. Our breath is beginning to steam up the windows and we’re running out of conversation.

I know I should get out. It’s been fifteen years since I last set eyes on my old teacher, and it’s taken several months to track him down. I’m nervous.

“Do I look OK?” I’ve put on a shirt and tie, hoping to impress.

Not that much had impressed Mr Govern all those years ago.

Cara nods her approval. I know she’s trying to put me at my ease.

“You look very smart. Anyway, it’s me who needs to impress. I’m the one who’s never met him.”

Reaching over, she straightens my tie.

“Are you sure you’re all right?”

“I’ll be fine. Just give me a moment.”

Not for the first time since I slipped the envelope into my inside pocket this morning, I pat my jacket to make sure it’s still there. It is, of course – why wouldn’t it be?

My wife unbuckles her seatbelt and lowers the sun-shield to check her face in the mirror.

“I’m sure there’s nothing to be nervous about, Ryan. He was your teacher, that’s all.”

I get out of the car and wait for Cara to join me, wondering what he’ll think when he sees I’ve ended up with such a beautiful and intelligent woman. I can hardly believe it myself sometimes.

“No,” I say, as I unlatch the gate. “Mr Govern was much more than that.”

“A word, Ryan.”

It’s the end of lesson and the noise in the room has risen as books are stuffed into rucksacks and talk turns to what everyone will be doing this weekend. Can’t it wait?

I turn to face Mr Govern, my hands shoved deep into my pockets.

“Goodbye. That’s a word – will it do?”

Have I gone too far? This man who stands behind his ordered table, in his crisp striped shirt and blue jacket, is the only teacher I can tolerate at Blackburn Comp. Although I don’t tend to show it, I rather enjoy his lessons.

I grin and raise my hands in surrender to show him I don’t mean anything by it. “Joke!”

Mr Govern bends to the homework tray so that I can’t see his expression.

Seconds pass and he says nothing. I start to feel awkward, but when he stands straight again, there’s a smile on his face and I feel relieved.

“Not your best joke, I have to say,” he says at last with a shake of his head.

“What do you want, sir? I’m missing football.”

My mates are already filing into the corridor.

We’ve planned to go to the rec after school and I’m impatient to leave the building that for the last three years has felt little better than a prison. What can be so important that he needs to keep me here?

There is a piece of A4 paper in Mr Govern’s hand and he studies it. It’s the one I handed in yesterday – I recognise it by the brown circle in the corner, where I put my coffee cup.

When he doesn’t answer my question, I sling my bag over my shoulder and make for the door.

“Where are you going?” “Home. The bell’s gone.” “Well, I’m sure you can spare me a couple of minutes of your precious time, young man.”

Lifting the spectacles that hang from his neck, he settles them on his nose and begins to read from the page in front of him.

“‘Without adults to enforce discipline on the island, most of the boys run wild. The conch symbolises Piggy’s and Ralph’s attempts to bring about order.’ A good answer to the question I set.”

I stop halfway to the door and shrug, but inside I feel a nugget of satisfaction. “Ta.”

“So, do you know what I’m going to do with this piece of homework?”

I glance at the door, wondering whether the lads will have started the footie game without me. “No.”

“This.”

Holding the top of the page in both hands, Mr Govern starts to rip it in half. Slowly at first, then finishing with a flourish.

He stands for a moment, a piece of my homework in each hand, then turns and drops it into the wastepaper bin beside his table.

“Why did you . . .?” “Why did I what, Ryan? Why did I just destroy your very astute and insightful answer?” He looks at me over the top of his spectacles, his forehead creasing.

“Because, young man, there are just three paragraphs of writing. And however well-written, it’s well below what I expect from a student of your calibre – especially when it appears to be written in felt-tip pen.”

I stare at him.

“I don’t know what you mean.”

“I think you do.”

I hate him then. Hate what he’s done. It isn’t my fault there’s no space in our cramped flat to work, that my younger brother’s always hiding the pens and that I can’t hear myself think with next-door’s TV blaring through our paper-thin walls.

But even as I scowl and kick at a chair on my way out of the classroom, I am aware of something. Where other teachers have given up trying, Mr Govern has cared enough to bother.

The person who opens the door isn’t Mr Govern, but an elderly woman I presume to be his wife. She’s wearing a navy cardigan edged with white stitching and her fine grey hair is caught up in a tight bun.

“Mrs Govern?”

She peers at me as though she should know me.

“I’m sorry to bother you, but I was wondering if your husband was in.”

“My husband? Oh, you mean my brother. Brian never married.”

I never knew that. I’d always imagined him going home to a wife who handed him his slippers and cooked him his tea. The thought of him not having a companion makes me sad.

He’d retired the year I left school and I’d pictured him and his wife on the golf course or walking arm in arm along the prom.

That picture is now as null and void as my end of term exam papers after I’d screwed them up and thrown them across the examination room.

“Does Brian know you’re coming?”

“No, he doesn’t.” Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all.

“I’m afraid he tires easily. He hasn’t been well, you see.”

My wife gives her sweet smile. The one that makes a dimple form in her cheek.

“Then we’ll make sure we won’t be long. There’s something my husband wants to give him. It’s rather important.”

Mr Govern’s sister glances behind her into the darkened hallway. “You’d better come in.” We follow her across the hall and into what must be the living-room.

Mr Govern is sitting in a wing-backed chair with a cup of coffee on the little table beside him.

He’s wearing a neat striped shirt with a buttondown collar and a maroon tie.

Seated, he looks smaller than I remember and his hair is even thinner than it once was.

“Mr Govern?”

My voice doesn’t sound like my own. I wait for him to look up, to recognise the boy he once helped, but when he raises his head, there is nothing but a question in his eyes.

“Next week is parents’ evening, Ryan. Will anyone be coming?” “Dunno.”

I doubt it. My dad cleared off when I was three and Mum doesn’t care much about what I get up to at school.

With a frown, Mr Govern walks over to the computer. Bending to it, he moves the cursor to the bottom of the screen and opens a file.

“I have your end-of-year report here. I thought we

Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea after all

might discuss it.”

I shrug again. It’s something I seem to do a lot. Despite myself, I want to know what it says.

“I’d like to ask you something.” Mr Govern straightens up and looks me squarely in the eye. “How is it that you are a B student in my class but are struggling to reach an E in your other classes? And before you say you don’t know, I want you to give my question some thought.”

It’s been three months since the incident with the homework and, in that time, two more assignments have joined that first in the wastepaper bin.

To start with, it made me angry, then I found myself trying harder – as if it were a game, to see if the assignment I’d just handed in could remain in one piece.

I’d watch him as he sat at his table, my rather grubby offering in front of him, and wait for the shake of the head. When it didn’t come, I’d been relieved.

“I can’t work, sir. The baby’s always crying and there’s always stuff on the table.

“Whenever I start writing, Mum wants me to go to the shop or the lads want me to play footie. Is it any wonder I’m getting

Es in all my subjects?”

Mr Govern looks up from the computer.

“That’s quite a list of reasons.”

I force myself not to shrug again.

“It’s the truth.” Straightening up, he goes to the table and starts to shuffle papers, securing them with a paper clip and filing them in his drawer.

Then he picks up his briefcase and puts on his jacket. As he walks past me, he stops and places a hand on my shoulder.

“There is one thing missing from your list, young man.”

I raise my eyebrows. “What’s that?” “You.”

If Mr Govern is surprised to see me after all these years, he doesn’t show it. Instead, he indicates the settee and invites us to sit.

“This is my wife, Cara.” I take her hand and hold it in my lap, glad that she’s here with me.

Mr Govern nods. “Pleased to meet you.” Cara’s attention has been caught by a long photograph on the wall. She moves closer to see it better.

“Are they the children you taught, Mr Govern?” He turns his head. “Some of them. The photograph was taken just before I retired. The headmaster asked what I’d like as a leaving present and I could think of nothing else I wanted.”

“I remember it being taken,” I say. “It was just before I left.”

Mr Govern turns back to me, his expression vague. “Was it?”

In the photograph, I see Tim Butler who, despite a severe spelling problem, managed to scrape a C in English and get into catering college.

There, too, was Jude Seaward who’d become a teacher herself and who, when I’d asked what had made her want to become one, had mentioned Mr Govern’s name.

As I look at the faces of the children who had left the school in 1991, I see many more who would not be where they are today had it not been for this man.

Before I lose my nerve, I slip my hand into my jacket pocket and bring out the envelope. Reaching across, I hand it to him, my eyes on the patterned carpet. “What’s this?”

“It’s an invitation, Mr Govern, to my graduation.”

With shaky hands, he takes it out of the envelope.

“For me, you say?”

The classroom chairs have been put on the desks ready for the floor to be swept. Lifting one down, Mr Govern sits. He places his briefcase on the floor next to him and indicates for me to do the same. Then he takes off his glasses and rubs his eyes.

“You’re on a slippery slope to nowhere, Ryan, and the only person who can change that situation is you. Have you forgotten your exams are in a few weeks?”

I fiddle with the strap of my rucksack. I don’t want to let him down, but I haven’t even thought about revising.

“You might still have time to pull yourself up.”

We both know this is unlikely, but neither us says so.

“Whatever happens, though,” he continues, leaning forward to emphasise what he’s saying, “when you leave this school, I want you to remember one thing.”

I scuff my toe against the chair leg.

“What’s that?”

“For a bright boy like you, mediocre isn’t good enough.”

He replaces his glasses then stands abruptly, and I watch, with confusion as he strides out of the room.

“I’ll never forget what you did for me.”

“Whatever it was, it was nothing.” Mr Govern shifts in his chair and the blanket that covers his knees slips to the floor. I pick it up and replace it.

“The lesson you taught me came a bit late and I left school with just a handful of GCSES, but your words stayed with me.

“I got a job and studied part time, sometimes late into the night. It’s been tough but, three years ago, I got accepted to read English at Sussex University as a mature student.”

I smile at Cara and squeeze her hand. I couldn’t have done it without her, either.

“That’s very commendable.”

“We hope you will come to the graduation ceremony, Mr Govern. We really do.”

I see my old teacher’s eyes slide over to the photograph.

“And who did you say you were?”

It’s like someone has pulled the breath from me. All these years I’ve presumed he’d remember me – the boy he saved through his belief.

Now I see how wrong I’ve been. I was not the only one he helped; the man who sits before me dedicated his life to hundreds of young people.

I feel Cara’s eyes on me, wondering how I will react.

“What I did was nothing special,” he repeats, adjusting the blanket over his knees.

Standing, I walk to the photograph and trace my finger over the glass, stopping when it reaches my younger self. I see the boy I was and the man I will become.

“That’s where you’re wrong,” I say.

Mr Govern picks up his mug of coffee and drinks from it, putting it back down on the table, on top of the invitation. It sticks to the bottom and when he lifts the mug again it’s left a brown ring. I hear him tut.

“What a nuisance. It’s because my sister is always clearing away the . . .”

He stops, his eyes on the mark, and then his head nods as if in answer to an unspoken question.

“Are you all right, Mr Govern?”

Without answering, he stares at me a moment, then takes the invitation in both of his hands. As I watch, he stands unsteadily then makes as if to tear it in half.

“No, wait!”

I’m almost out of my seat but Cara’s hand is on my arm, stopping me. I see that Mr Govern is smiling and that’s when I realise that he knows me, after all.

Picking up his stick, he walks over to the sideboard and places the invitation on it. He looks up at the photo and his eyes go misty.

“I’d be delighted to come,” he says. n

I looked at the faces of the children who had left in 1991