James Smythe: The Machine

It’s not that funny, she says, but already she can hear it: the quiet ripple of jokes about her and a conch – cock – shell, what she might do with it in her spare time, why she might need it. Because they think that she’s single, even though she wears the ring on her fourth finger, as they’ve never once seen her with him. Five years and no sign of her husband. Come on, Beth says, we’re already behind. She assigns another reader, asking one of the girls at the front, one of the few who are desperate to listen, who sit there scowling every time the rest of the class manages to derail things, and the girl ploughs through the words like they’re going to evaporate. Ordinarily Beth would tell her to slow down, but most of the class just titter every time the word conch appears, so she’s happy to simply get through it.

She spends lunch by herself, in her classroom. Sometimes some of the girls will ask if they can sit in, but most of the time they’re outside, desperately searching for a breeze by getting to high points of the playground or skulking in whatever shade they can happen across. Despite the heat they still drape themselves over each other in primitive pre-sex ways. Beth watches them out of the windows and eats her sandwiches.

When she gets home – school ends early, like she’d heard it used to on the continent, because of the heat there – she opens the windows and sticks the fans on. She has four: two in the living room, one in the kitchenette and one in the bedroom. She’s never really used the spare room so that’s not got one, but she worries about the Machine. She takes the one from the kitchenette, thinking that she’ll angle one of the others later to cover it as well, and puts it on the chest of drawers in the spare room. The chest of drawers, like the rest of the furniture, came from their old house in London. This was the stuff that she brought with her when she moved. The flat was already furnished, and she left it piled up and unused in the spare bedroom for years. For a while, she couldn’t bear to look at it, so it was easier to leave it buried under vacuum-packed clothes and old curtains still with the rings through their hooks. She places it facing the Machine and turns it on, letting it rotate and swing around the room.

I hope that this weather isn’t making you too hot, she says. She walks to the Machine and puts her hand onto it, and it’s cold. So cold, she realizes: colder than it should be. She wonders how it keeps itself cool. No refrigeration component, and it’s been off. The fans can’t have been running. She assumes that this must be an effect of the metal that it’s made from. She moves her hand across the metal, almost sliding it so that her forearm is flat against the cold, and that makes her sigh. This part of the Machine could easily accommodate her entire body – the thing itself is big enough to fit three or four bodies inside, she thinks – and there’s no screen here, nothing but metal from floor to ceiling, and the span of her arms. She grabs the bottom of her shirt and peels it up, rolling it to below her breasts and then pressing her back against the Machine itself. It’s so cold that the relief is incredible. She peels herself off and looks at the print of her sweat on the metal, then presses her front, her arms spread, like an embrace. I should have a shower, she says. She stands back and pulls her shirt off, and then uses the shirt to wipe down the sweat, cleaning the metal. She undresses more as she walks to the bathroom, and then steps into the shower, throws the dial to the coldest it can be and stands there.

Beth sees the weather report, and it’s a relief – even in the voice of the weatherman, and the person that they’ve got out on the streets, waiting to report on the rain as soon as it happens – but it just makes Beth hesitant for a second. When it rains, most of the South Coast gets caught up in celebrating. It still rains a little more in Scotland, but the closer you get to London it almost entirely ceases. It’s not a drought any more, though so many people still call it that. The hosepipe ban started and never ended. When it rains, if the kids are in the classrooms, they get more restless than at the end of term. They can’t be kept, and sometimes one or two of them have just stood up in the middle of Beth’s class and walked out, choosing instead to dance around on the torn AstroTurf outside.

When the rain finally starts, as she’s halfway through a lesson about verbs, Beth shuts the curtains. It’s a move designed to curb the distraction, but it can only ever fail.

I know it’s a big deal, she says, raising her voice over the din, but it’ll still be there when you get out at the end of the day. Nowadays they get two or three days of full-on monsoon rain every few months, heavier than she can ever remember it being when she was a child. It doesn’t soak into the ground because the soil is so broken and hard to begin with. Instead, it floods everything, coursing down the streets, turning them into run-off sewers. In the classroom, they can hear it: like a river, doubled by the insistent sound of the rain smacking into the windows that line the one external wall of the classroom. It’s a completely different sound to the sea. Funny, Beth thinks, that water can do so many things.

When the lesson is done, Beth takes herself to the staff room. She sits at a table by herself, gets a coffee from the machine. She stares out of the window: the grass of the playground is nearly entirely gone, worn down by the kids playing football. There’s a cough: she looks up, and a woman is staring at her.

May I? she asks, meaning the vacant seat opposite, and Beth nods. The woman sits. She’s only Beth’s age, maybe even a couple of years younger, and she reads through sheets of photocopied paper, notes about classes in a nearly illegible scrawl. She looks familiar in that way that friendly people do: smiling with her eyes, not stern, mouth in a half-tilt upwards. She keeps looking at Beth, glancing; nervously fingers something on a necklace that hangs just below her shirt. Eventually, she speaks again. My name’s Laura, she says. I’m a sub, only here for a few days. In for… She looks at her sheet. Arnold Westlake. Any tips? The woman smiles. It’s something she’s used to: having to make introductions, having to do this anew every week. It shows, because it’s glossy and confident in a way that makes Beth immediately envious. Apart from, you know: don’t let them eat you alive. Beth laughs gently.

No, they like change. No chance of you being eaten, not yet. They’re good kids, mostly. Some pains.

Any in particular I should watch out for?

Which classes have you got?

Laura looks at her notes. Nine-C first, then 10-B, 12-C. She thrusts the registers over towards Beth, who scans the names.

Two C-tracks? Lucky. She smiles at Laura sympathetically. They’ve all been there. Well, Jared Holmes, Beth says. She points to his name on the register. He’s got a reputation. I’ve never taught him, but I’ve seen Arnie – that’s Arnold – going mad over him. Amy Lancer – Amy Chancer, some of the teachers call her. And these. Both the Decker boys are nightmares. Laura nods with each name, mentally filing them away. Where have you come from?

Horsham. Take the work where you find it and all that.

You’re commuting?

Staying in a guest house over in Ryde. Apparently I could be here until the end of term, which is why I took it. Couldn’t come this far for a day. Do you know what happened to Mr Westlake?

Not a clue. I didn’t even know he was off.

Well, I hope he’s all right. There’s a silence as they both sit; then Laura quickly stands up, grabs her things. I should get my classroom ready. I’m sorry, I didn’t get your name?