Oranges and Oysters

“If a single orange costs 25 pence and you have five pounds how many oranges can you buy?”

A blank stare.

“What sum would you do to figure out how many oranges you can buy with five pounds?”

Another blank stare.

“...I would ask bossman how many I can buy?”

Teaching adults is one thing, teaching children is quite another. Now, teaching children with complex, and often frustrating, educational needs is an odyssey. You’re supposed to say that you find every day rewarding and that you can tangibly feel yourself becoming a better person. This was not exactly my experience.

Before I went into education I would talk to all children, no matter how old, like they were my same-age mates. I would complain about unanswered emails or earnestly ask if I should be worried that I don’t have a pension plan, even if it meant raising my voice to be heard over ‘Baby Shark’.

I had the chance to have a kid when I was younger and didn’t take it. I was worried about finances, worried about a lack of stability and worried I wasn’t maternal enough. I've never felt that having children is the summation of all womanhood, though it would be dishonest to say I haven’t lovingly cupped my belly and looked at my profile in the mirror after, like, a large Nando’s. But, above all, an abject fear of bringing a life into the world and then proceeding to fuck it up means I’ve not been rushing to freeze my eggs now either.

Off the back of a stint of school jobs where emotions ran fantastically high and chairs were thrown, I envisioned working with children that had needs like severe autism might be an even bigger challenge I could get stuck into. I went full hog into researching all manner of neurodivergent conditions thinking if I’d Googled the sensory benefit of fidget spinners that’d prepare me for the job. What I got during my first week, however, was a bunch of kids who, on the surface, were entirely nonplussed by my existence. Which, when you’re in a caretaker role, a lack of the usual cues for affection or gratitude or even anger we come to expect as self-involved adults can be very deflating. All of this was at a scandalously underfunded special needs department of a state secondary, where most of the students should’ve been in specialist environments, not navigating both the tyranny of adolescence and inner-city schooling.

The lack of a proverbial social filter took some time to get accustomed to. “Miss, you don’t have a husband do you?” Miss, why do you look tired?” Miss, did you know you have a spot on your chin?” “Miss, Miss, MISSSSS.” But the unintentional gallows humour of working with children on the spectrum, which obviously you absolutely cannot laugh at on the job, was difficult not to find darkly comic.

One student, once he’d warmed to me, would walk with me to the school gates in the morning, past the unofficial smoking area where a mass of teachers would huddle like penguins over cups of watery lattes. One day he stopped, looked blankly at them, and then asked “Did you know if you smoke cigarettes you’ll get lung cancer and die?” The first time it happened I wanted to turn into mercury and just kind of slither away from the awkwardness. The second and then third time I realised this was not new. It made me smile when whoever the teacher was just trying to get their pre-lesson nicotine hit in peace would energetically reply “Yes! I do know! Thank you for reminding me smoking is slowly killing me!”

Another student, despite every effort to keep him away from the nooks and crannies of the internet, had a joyous interest in the September 11 attacks. Upon entering a classroom, he loudly announced “Hey! These desks are in the shape of the 9/11 memorial! Have I told you about how fast the plane hit the first tower, Miss?” Again, the first time it happened I thought my soul might leave my body. But every occasion after that where he could be successfully steered away from "Jet fuel can't melt steel beams" into, y’know, doing homework felt good.

There were far more exasperating days than there were good ones. But over the course of the job, I stopped trying to remonstrate the students through gritted teeth and started seeing the world on their terms. And, unexpectedly, I began to feel pangs of tiger-mother protectiveness I’d long thought I never had. 

The chasm between my old, high octane life and the clean slate I’d begun was satisfying. A big scab that could be picked clean off to reveal shiny new skin underneath. So I was annoyed when a ghost from the past appeared on my phone with a “hey u”. We had oscillated in and out of each other's lives for years; me gently imploding over time and him enjoying increasing success and celebrity plus all the creature comforts that came with it.

I remember it was a Thursday because I was annoyed at the presumption I had nothing to do with my week. And I was an adult now, with a job and a routine. I could no longer stroll into work at midday with some barely disguised lie about meeting someone important for an article or a film. But he had booked a hotel for a few days and wanted to take me for dinner. 

I agreed because I did not in fact have anything to do. But I got a morbid kick out of insisting on picking him up in my clapped-out car, school textbooks strewn over the backseat and zit cream on my chin. We went to our usual spot, somewhere that, if I could remember just how fantastically drunk I’d been there on numerous other occasions, I’d probably be too embarrassed to walk into. But this was a new start for me.

The waiter came over and mid-order stopped to say that they’d enjoyed an article I’d written and were sorry about how I’d been fired. Something which has only happened twice in my life, tops, but how glorious it was this time. Once we’d finished ordering a needlessly opulent meal of oysters and steak I looked over to see a big grin. “Look at you!”, he said. For some reason I smiled, geisha-like, and brushed it off when internally I was screaming “Yes you thick bastard, I’m good at stuff too. I COULD’VE BEEN A CONTENDER!” But none of that mattered now, anyway.

Later, when I couldn’t sleep I was looking at his back in bed and I thought about how I knew everything about him and he knew so little about me. In order to avoid intimacy, I’d developed this irritating two-step of deflecting hurt with humour and countering any probing questions with my own questions. In that moment, the lack of closeness I’d allowed myself as a young woman made me feel unfathomably sad. And a little sick. Actually...really fucking sick. Then I remembered: oysters.

Y’know how hotels have those tiny plugholes? Well, have you ever attempted hurriedly trying to push chunks of your own shellfish puke down one to make room for more puke? If it wasn’t so disgusting I’d have been impressed by the amount of bile and sea salt that was streaming from my nose. Why the hell did I vomit in the sink if the toilet is right there? But, oh no, I spoke too soon. So there I was waddling from toilet to sink in sweaty, laboured silence so as not to break the illusion of being a desirable woman. We are supposed to be soft skinned and smell of jasmine blooms and Skittles. We are not supposed to be doubled over endlessly shitting and vomiting bad oysters.

I emerged an hour later, nude and empty. I think if you’d have flicked my tummy it would have echoed like a drum. I crept back into the bed, rigid, afraid if I made any sudden movements I’d be staring down a large laundry bill. Eventually, I fell asleep.

He went early the next morning and I did this cute little hair-tousled, half-asleep act when actually I was desperately waiting for him to go so I could buy a Lucozade to torpedo and race home. But when I left the hotel and dragged myself to the car park I could see something terrible had happened. My car – and only my car because I was the only person stupid enough to leave it there – was boxed in by stalls upon stalls of street food vendors with pithy, pun-laden chalkboard menus.

It was such an absurd situation and I was already delirious from the evening of vomiting that as I began to hunt down the organiser I started laughing to myself. Not a little, I mean full-on tears of frenzied laughter. When I found the guy he was very apologetic and though he was sorry I’d have to wait it out and sit in a Pret nursing a tuna baguette for five hours.

Defeated, I left the car park until I thought, no, this is not how today goes. I calmly went back, got into my car, quickly turned the engine on and started to drive. Barely a crawl at first until before I knew it, I’d picked up into a brisk walking speed. So there I was, smelling ever so slightly of sick and driving into a crowd of people just trying to enjoy their weekend. The vendors began snatching their foldable tables of artisanal tacos and pulled pork sliders out of the way as I continued putting my foot down on the accelerator, making no eye contact. As I could see that I’d cleared the final stall of hot churros the security guard, stunned, patted the rear window as if the car were a Pamplona bull waiting for a red flag and let me disappear off into the distance. 

I got home, swaddled myself in my duvet and rode the waves of embarrassment until it was time to sleep. Monday came round again and before I knew it I was back in the staff room, nodding as coworkers politely relayed their uneventful weekends. The bell rang for the first lesson. Back to the new me.

“Okay…if a single orange costs 25 pence and you have five quid, how many oranges can you buy?”