‘Joseph Logan.’

‘Yes, miss?’

‘Thank you for your attention.’

A murmur of sycophantic laughter.

She pointed with the chalk to the lines on the board.

‘What degree is angle A?’

‘Er …’

‘Angle B?’

‘Well …’

‘I suppose it is too much to expect you to know what angle C is. What angle C must be?’

‘I’m sorry, miss …’

She spread her hands out towards the rest of the class, who roared in one triumphant voice, ‘60 degrees, miss.’

She wrote 60 degrees on the board and then turned to face Joseph again.

‘What do you call this particular triangle, Joseph?’

He looked past her at the board.

‘Equ …’ he read. ‘Equ …’ He left it at that. There was no point in getting tangled up in the other letters. He knew they wouldn’t sound the way they looked.

‘Equilateral,’ said Miss McCabe. Her mouth was angry. She underlined the word three times and then the chalk broke. She threw the pieces on to her desk.

‘I am here to teach, Joseph,’ she said. ‘You are here to learn. The law,’ she spoke the word with contempt,’ demands that you attend school. If I had my way I would open that door, and let you and all the others who don’t wish to learn go home and wallow in your ignorance. Wallow.’

She opened her desk and took out a new piece of chalk.

‘One day, when it is too late you will regret your inattention. Regret this incredible waste of time. Your time and, I may say, my time. You will remain behind after the others have gone home.’ She sighed and turned towards the board. The class sighed too, they had hoped for better things.

By the time Joe was let out of school the town was beginning to lose its colour. The rows of houses up the hill behind had the look of cardboard cut-outs against the draining sky. The wind that blew up the valley was cold and the day’s dust and several crisp bags played dismally around Joe’s feet as he walked along the road. He was in no hurry to get home. Mam never got back from the café much before a quarter to six and it was more than likely that the old fella’d be sending him out on messages here, there and everywhere, and Mam would catch him at it and there would be ructions. More ructions. It was that sort of day. A ructious day. There weren’t many people about. Down below him in the distance a couple of shots were fired and then there was silence. The street lamps were flowering and people had not yet drawn their curtains, so the dusk glittered. He stopped by a long low wall and put his school bag down on it. His mother hated him to loiter. He shoved his clenched fists into the pockets of his anorak and huddled it around him, against the wind. A mist of smoke from the thousands of houses below drifted along the valley. The only colour to be seen now was the green grass of the hill across the valley, on top of which rose the grey walls that surrounded the city. A seagull drifted on the wind, out too late for safety. It was being blown away from the river back towards the hills. With an effort it moved its wings and turned steeply, setting off for home again. Joe picked up his school bag and took the hint. He passed a couple of shops, the windows barricaded, with stripes of light between the planks, ‘Business as usual’ scrawled on the closed doors. He turned off the main road down the hill, past a row of derelict cottages, the windows frightening holes. He began to run. This stretch of the road always put fear in him. Around the corner a couple of men were strolling casually. Joe slowed his feet. He always felt that to run for no good reason made other people nervous. One of the men laughed at some joke. Joe sauntered past them.