Maybe she thought I was some sort of Black & Gold Gogol, but I knew this couldn’t help my reputation, what there was of it. Curtis sat beside Dwayne, looking in, grinning. I mouthed a fuck off and he bit his lip. A strangely out-of-place Rachmaninoff vesper played to a yard of 1100 Darrens and Kerrys as I thought, Please, let it be over quick.

Mr de Weerd was a marvel. Back in Holland, apparently, every school had its own radio station. When he’d arrived at the beginning of the year (on an exchange) he’d told Curtis’s class, ‘I don’t understand where the culture lies.’ They’d got a big laugh out of this. Curtis had said, ‘It doesn’t lie anywhere,’ and (I guess) de Weerd had wondered what the hell he’d got himself in for. Then (so I’ve been told) he’d caught Wendy going her hardest behind the hall with a Year Nine. Sports day: a muscle-fest in the century-plus sun. The change room fire (two burned down). A teachers’ strike. George Bullock’s Torana through the school fence. By which time he would’ve known exactly where it lay.

Not to be put off, he’d decided the transmission of culture would solve everything. He’d spoken to the principal, who’d loaned him a room for six months, and the school council, who’d given him a few thousand dollars. Next, a whole-school egg carton drive to insulate the walls. Carpet, desks, chairs, microphones and reel-to-reel wired into the school’s PA. Then, in March, he’d brought us culture. Mr Thorpe making a little speech on the first day of transmission. ‘Welcome, students, to Radio Gleneagles. Thanks to the hard work of Mr de Weerd we have a suitable medium to provide entertainment during breaks.’ Then he’d said how it was only a trial, and how they’d need the room back when the typing class moved. A cultural disclaimer, like this music and poetry stuff was all well and good, but don’t get too used to it. Remember who you are, children of the proletariat. Deep down (I guess) he didn’t think we’d appreciate it. Someone would cut some wires, or steal some equipment, or piss on the carpet. He’d said, ‘To get us started, Mrs Masharin will read from Prowst.’

But, with the help of Dwayne, and the suffering of our own audiophonic-Gogh, Radio Bogan was still on the air. Mrs Masharin was there every week, reading student work to the masses. Some of the ball-kickers had complained to Thorpey (Why d’we gotta listen to that shit all day?) but he’d kept on keeping on.

The vespers faded and Dwayne indicated to Comrade Masharin. She said, ‘And now we have an excerpt from new novel of Clem Vhelarn …’

I could hear the distant jeers.

‘Clem, what is your novel to be called?’

‘This Excellent Machine.’

‘And to what does that refer?’

‘It’s a bit hard to explain but, you know, like life’s a machine, and we go in one end and come out the other, changed.’