CODE PURPLE

In the staff room, none of the teachers was aware of Nelson’s extraordinary goal, and a moment that might have passed into legend quickly took on the shape of a dream. The boys, drifting back to classes in a fog of sweat and boredom, had already forgotten, while Martin, impressed and a little jealous, would certainly never refer to it again. But Nelson knew. He sat down in one of the ancient armchairs, the brown webbing beneath the seat slapping against the floor, and lifted a copy of that day’s Guardian to scan the headlines but found himself unable to take anything in since all he really wanted to do was laugh.

‘What are you smiling about?’ asked Tina Holmes, the art teacher, who was seated across from him, drinking coffee from a pottery mug that she’d made herself, inscribing it with the words World’s Sexiest Teacher. Miss Holmes had taught Nelson when he was a teenager and once, when he was fifteen, had sat next to him while he was alone in the art room, placing her hand on his lap, perilously close to his penis, which had withdrawn into itself, seeking sanctuary in his pelvic area, like Ustym Karmaliuk retreating into his shell when he sensed the presence of a potential predator.

‘Was I smiling?’ asked Nelson, adjusting his face so it reflected his usual melancholia.

‘There’s nothing more irritating than a boy having some private joke with himself,’ she said. ‘It’s rude, it excludes others and I won’t stand for it.’

‘I’m sorry, Miss Holmes,’ replied Nelson, who found it impossible to refer to any of his former teachers by their Christian names, not even Mr Salik, his erstwhile religious studies teacher, who was Muslim so didn’t have one.

‘So what is it, then?’ she asked.

‘Nothing,’ he said. ‘It doesn’t matter.’

‘Oh, for God’s sake,’ she said, taking a long slurp from her mug. ‘I’m not telling you not to smile. I just wondered why you appeared so cheerful, that’s all. You usually look as if you went to the theatre to see Hamilton but ended up at an understudies’ performance of Cats.’

‘Well, the thing is,’ said Nelson, feeling that he needed to tell someone, if only to legitimize the experience, ‘when I was on my way in, I was walking past the playing fields and—’

‘Have you been working out?’ asked Miss Holmes.

‘I’m sorry?’

‘Have you been working out? You look quite … fit.’

Nelson swallowed and stared at her, uncertain how to respond.

‘Well, I did join a gym recently,’ he admitted. ‘But I got barred quite early on.’

‘Whatever for?’

‘It was a misunderstanding,’ he said.

‘Were you looking at other men in the changing rooms?’ she asked, leaning forward and smiling lasciviously at him. ‘Do men do that? Check each other out to separate the horses from the ponies?’

‘No,’ he said, looking appalled at the idea. ‘It was women that I was harassing.’