Maxwell's Inspection (4 page)

In between gulps of Maxwell's round, Duggsy on his dais was attempting to belt out
House of the Rising Sun
. It was a long way from The Animals. Sally Meninger rejoined Whiting at the bar and whispered in his ear,
running
a manicured hand up his thigh. He looked taken aback, then shook his head. Suddenly, she'd yanked him to his feet and disappeared with him into the bowels of
the Vine, clattering along the corridor.

‘Christ,' Holton muttered. ‘I think I need a drink.'

‘I think we all do,' Maxwell agreed. ‘My shout. Paul, be a sweetie and give me a hand, will you? I need to go to the Little Teachers' Room. I'd ask Jeff, but with his current problem, the lot could go anywhere.'

‘That sounds like an occulist remark to me,' Armstrong bridled.

‘So sue me,' Maxwell patted him on both shoulders as he passed.

‘That really is bloody amazing.' Moss was collecting the drinks from the bar as Cosgrove poured them. ‘I mean, they're like a couple of kids. Whereas they've got to be …'

‘Past it, Mr Moss?' Maxwell lowered at him. ‘Take great care. With ageist remarks like that, I may yet cut you out of my will.'

‘I just find it … bizarre.'

‘As a church,' Maxwell agreed, thrusting a couple of notes into his Head of Department's hand. ‘Pay the man, will you, Paul? Old Mr Wee-wee has come a-calling. Much more of this and I'll bladder me tights.'

The Little Teachers' Room was around the bar to the left, then a sharp right by the dart board. The sign said, in Tudor script, ‘Gentlemen' and Maxwell hadn't the heart to tell them that, to get it right, it should have said ‘Generosi'. It occurred to Maxwell as he got there, that if Jeff Armstrong was taken short later, he'd need help
finding
it. One false move on the dodgy double step and he might lose his other eye.

There's something about a loo in a pub. Especially the gent's. The tiles were an unlikely Cartland pink and there
was that strange mixture that assaulted the nostrils – mimosa with a hint of carbolic and ammonia. All pretence at Tudor had gone here, presumably because Pub Décor ‘R' Us had no idea what a Tudor privy looked like. It was just as well. Maxwell's wrists tingled as he answered nature's call; he didn't realize he had been hanging on for so long. He blew outwards gratefully as men do when in extremis, secretly proud of that most masculine of skills – the ability to pee standing up.

It was mercifully quiet here, the strains of Duggsy's
Street Spirit
merely a rumour three and a half rooms away. At least in this one that idiot on the drums wasn't playing – no doubt grateful to get his hands on Maxwell's freebie drink at last. To Maxwell's right, a slightly battered
contraceptive
machine promised Heaven and French Ticklers, ribbed for extra enjoyment. And sure enough, some wag had scrawled on it that the chewing gum in this machine tasted terrible.

And extra enjoyment seemed to be emanating from the cubicle behind him. Arising crescendo of heavy
breathing
, exaggerated as though for effect and a rhythmic thumping on the thin partition walls. Maxwell zipped himself up as soon as was humanly possible and poured pink gunk over his trousers in a rushed attempt to wash his hands. He was still trying to get the pansy-embossed paper towels out of the dispenser as the door opened to his right. Instinctively he turned and came face to face with a flushed Sally Meninger, quickly pulling her skirt down her bare thighs. The head that popped itself round the doorframe next was that of Alan Whiting. He saw Maxwell and his jaw dropped. He swayed like a rabbit in the headlights before she took control of the situation. She
smiled winningly at Maxwell, who had now abandoned the recalcitrant towel idea and she paused to check her hair in the mirror while the hot air absolutely refused to dry his hands. She swayed provocatively to the door. The tipsiness of moments ago seemed to have vanished and if Maxwell had asked her to walk a straight line, he felt she'd have had no problem at all with that.

At the door, she met Joe Public, who looked less
surprised
than he might have done, all things considered. She flashed him a basilisk-style smile and hissed ‘Brilliant!' before sauntering into the beer-fumed night and the strains of
Don't Fear the Reaper.

The three of them stood in the Little Teachers' Room; Peter Maxwell, Head of Sixth Form, Leighford High School; Alan Whiting, Chief Inspector, Her Majesty's Inspectorate; Joe Public, who turned to the urinals and unzipped. For a second, it reminded Maxwell of that splendid three-way shootout at the end of
The Good, the Bad and the Ugly
, where the camera flashes from gun-butt to eyeball to gun-butt – you remember the picture. Except ‘Clint Eastwood' had already emptied ‘Eli Wallach's' six gun – Joe Public had turned his back on them, whistling to
The Reaper
as he pissed half a day's wages up the wall. Bad old ‘Lee Van Cleef' aka Mad Max decided to see it out. He stood, iron-jawed and steely-eyed until Alan Whiting cleared his throat, straightened his tie and
followed
his co-operative colleague into the inner sanctum of the Vine.

‘All right, mate?' Joe Public reached for the holdall he'd put on the floor.

‘Top hole,' smiled Maxwell, still digesting the events of the last few moments. ‘You?'

‘Triffic,' beamed Public in a passable Del Boy and then he too was gone.

Maxwell found himself looking into the mirror again. Maybe, just maybe, he was too old for all this. Life was passing him by. Time to get home, to his cat, his slippers, his cocoa, his incontinence pads.

The lights burned blue. Through his skylight, Peter Maxwell could see the moon in its silver quarter frosting the sea out beyond the Shingle. He lolled back in his
swivel
chair, the gold-laced pill box cap he always wore in this attic at a jaunty angle over his left eyebrow. How
did
they keep these things on, those soldiers of yesteryear, riders to hounds and masters of the gallop? Before him on the modelling table under the powerful glare of the lamp and the magnifying glass, his latest acquisition, sat his charger. Horse and man were still grey at the moment, the raw material provided by Messrs Historex, model-makers extraordinary. But under Maxwell's expert hand, patience and the excellent colours of Messrs Humbrol, he would soon – perhaps by week Thursday – be Captain Bob Portal of the 4
^th
Light Dragoons, complete with blue tunic and overalls and black oilskin-cased shako.

‘Freefolk House, Count,' Maxwell was talking to his cat again. ‘Portal's birthplace. Lovely name, isn't it?'

Metternich was curiously unmoved. Dunmousin was good enough for him.

‘He exchanged from the 83
^rd
Foot,' Maxwell was in full flow. ‘Must have cost him a bit, that transfer. Makes Rio Ferdinand look like an amateur. He'd been a captain for eight years by the time of the Charge. Oh, don't worry, he survived – the 4
^th
were in the last line, of course, Paget's
reserve. Horse got shot, though.'

Metternich was ambivalent about that. The animal rightist in him could empathize, but horses were big
buggers
and they were so cack, it would be nothing to them to bring one great steel-shod hoof down on an unsuspecting feline. As far as cats could shudder at the thought, Metternich did. Damn! There was that shrill sound again, the one that shot through his eardrum to his spine and sent his tail into spasm. And sure enough, Maxwell did what he always did, reached across for that bit of white plastic.

‘War Office,' he spoke into it.

‘Max. How the Hell have you been?'

‘Policewoman Carpenter. It's been … hours.'

‘Sorry, Max. I've just got in. How did it go, darling?'

‘It?'

‘Now don't be coy with me, Peter Maxwell,' he heard her say. ‘I know you too well. For all your bonhomie, you've been shitting yourself for days over this Ofsted thing. I repeat – how did it go?'

‘Rather odd, really,' he told her. Policewoman Carpenter was actually a Detective Sergeant. More than that, she was Jacquie, a flame-haired girl who could
nearly
have been Peter Maxwell's daughter, had he been a true child of the Free-love generation he grudgingly admitted was his. More than that, she was
his
Jacquie and he loved her.

‘How?'

‘Well, I haven't been grilled yet. Just a gentle
ice-breaker
, cosy chat thing with the Pastoral Person. Who by the way is also the Humanities Honcho. Who by the way enjoys sex in public places.' 

‘What?' Jacquie felt she had to check, in case Maxwell's cordless was playing up as usual. ‘Say again.'

‘I kid you not, Policewoman.' He rested his crossed ankles gingerly on the top of the bookcase, a move he'd had cause to regret on more than one occasion. ‘We all went out for a little drinky tonight ….'

‘Well, thanks for asking me,' she whined, mock-hurt.

‘I knew it was your night for giving asylum seekers a good smacking down the nick,' he explained. ‘Anyway, it was a Teacher Moment. “We who are about to die” – that sort of thing.'

‘Hmm,' she snorted. ‘I might consider letting you off this time. And?'

‘And, there we were in the Vine, when who should walk in but the Pastoral Person and the Chief Inspector.'

‘That's Chief Inspector in your sense,' she reassured herself, ‘not mine.'

‘Indeed. Bloke by the name of Whiting. Anyway, they were all over each other. Smooching at the bar.'

‘Really? How old are they?'

‘Well, that's just it. Fortysomething, both of them. But it gets odder – or better, depending on whether you write for the
TES
or the
Daily Sport
. They were at it later – in the Vine loo.'

‘At it?' he heard her say.

Maxwell sighed. ‘Well, you see, my dear, when your mummy and daddy decided to have you, they planted this gooseberry bush …'

‘God, you mean, actually, at it?'

‘With girls in blue like you, my darling, we tax-payers can sleep sound in our beds.'

‘But that's bizarre. How do you know?'

‘Yes, that's what Paul Moss said and he didn't see the half of it. I happened upon them. Answering nature's call, minding my own business, as it were. Not quite
in
flagrante
, in that they mercifully had the decorum to get on with it in a cubicle rather than on the urinal floor. I could have stepped over them, I suppose.'

‘Did they know you were there?'

‘Oh yes. She came out adjusting her clothing, grinning like a sixteen-year-old.'

‘What about him?'

‘Hugely embarrassed, I'd say. If it had been me, I'd have wanted the ground to swallow me up.'

‘If it had been you?' she growled. ‘What number are you in the queue, Mr Maxwell?'

He laughed, quoting, as he often did, from his favourite film,
The Charge of the Light Brigade
, ‘They say her pitcher hath been too often to the well.'

‘So what are you going to do about it?' she asked.

‘Nothing,' he shrugged. ‘It's not a criminal offence … is it?'

‘Lewd behaviour in a public place. Yes,' she told him.

‘Well, that's as maybe,' he said, ‘but with all due
deference
to Ms Sally Meninger, I think I'd better let sleeping dogs lie.'

‘Who else have you told?' she asked him.

‘Just you, dear heart. Oh, and Martin Bashir of course.'

‘How can they face you tomorrow?' she wondered aloud.

‘Ah,' he chuckled. ‘I shall know them by the paper bags over their heads. Darling, I've got to go. Bless you for ringing. Are we still on for Thursday?'

‘Absolutely,' she told him. ‘Pick you up at seven.'

‘I bet you say that to all the Ofstedees. Goodnight Jacquie Carpenter. Love you.'

‘Love you, Peter Maxwell.'

And he waited for the click of her receiver, before
taking
grey Captain Portal across to the centre of the room. He switched on another lamp and the whole diorama came to life. Three hundred and ninety-one officers and men of Lord Cardigan's Light Brigade, saddled and
waiting
to ride into Hell that cold October lunchtime back in 1854. He carefully placed the unfinished figure to the right of the line of the 4
^th
Lights, slightly behind Lord George Paget, chewing his cigar, missing his wife and waiting for orders after half a day's inaction. He eased Troop Sergeant Major James Kelly back a little to fit the troop commander in place and crouched to get the eye line right.

Maxwell straightened. He'd leave Portal there tonight, let him get used to his plastic comrades, find the ease of his saddle. He'd start the paint job tomorrow. Tomorrow and tomorrow …

‘Look lively, Ten Aitch Two, I've got an exam to pass.'

Mad Max was in his Heaven, but not all appeared right with the world. Before him in that theatre of nostalgia known prosaically at Leighford High as Aitch Eight sat that notorious bunch of misfits who had opted for History GCSE last year, because last year it seemed the right thing to do. Now, they weren't so sure. And what it had taken them several months to find out, Peter Maxwell had known from Day One.

Beyond the dirty three dozen, squeezed awkwardly into a corner sat Sally Meninger. Gone was the come
hitherness 
of the Vine. The Fuck-Me shoes were replaced by a sensible court variation, the raunchy frock that
proclaimed
her cleavage to the world swapped for the
pencil-chalk
suit and yet another silk scarf. She had Maxwell's Lesson Plan on her lap, only the sixth he'd written in
thirty-something
years, and a deadpan look on her face.