Learning to Dance Again Read Free Page A

going?’
    He turned to see Helen and Maria, fellow teachers, walking through the cafeteria carrying trays.
    ‘Great! First day back and already it seems as if I’ve never been away.’
    ‘Well nothing much has changed here. You haven’t missed anything at all,’ Maria said, as she put her tray down and gave him a quick hug. ‘It’s great to see you back. How’s Julia? We must have you both over for a drink sometime.’
    ‘That would be nice. I think Julia’s glad to have me off her hands again. I don’t make a good patient; far too grumpy.’
    ‘Jesus, I’d have been a grumpy bitch if I had to have chemo and all that shit. It’s barbaric what they do to cure you isn’t it?’
    ‘Yeah, but it works.’
    ‘True; thank God!’
    Duncan excused himself and went off in search of chocolate, but by the time he had bought a bag of chocolate buttons he had gone off the idea. He was feeling weary. He looked at his watch; he wouldn’t be home for another three hours and he couldn’t wait to have a lie down.
     
    The bell rang for the start of the afternoon session. A group of gangly sixth-form pupils shuffled in to the classroom; all chatting loudly to each other and scarcely seeming to notice Duncan. As he waited for them to sit down, he felt a wave of nausea wash over him, and he regretted not eating properly. He opened his desk drawer and reached for a bottle of water and took a sip, and glanced out of the window, momentarily distracted by the sight of rain. There was silence in the room as he replaced the cap on the bottle.
    He realised everyone was staring at him, but he lost his train of thought for a moment and couldn’t think what to say.
    ‘Mr Robertson, a re you back for good now?’
    ‘Er , yes I am.’
    ‘That’s great; only we’ve had some bonkers supply teachers while you’ve been away.’
    ‘Bonkers?’
    ‘Yeah, for one w eek we had Miss Duffy yeah, she’s the new drama teacher. She couldn’t even spell trigonometry, let alone teach it.’
    ‘Sorry about that. Let’s see what catching up we have to do for your Highers then?’ And with that they got down to the business of the maths lesson.
     
    The class had their heads down working on an example exam questi on. It was quiet in the room. Duncan glanced up at the clock; just over an hour to go until he could go home. He still felt sick and couldn’t wait to shut his eyes and go to sleep. He was beginning to wonder whether it had been too soon to return to work after all.
    The rain had stopped and the sun had come out again. It had quickly warmed up the classroom and now it was unbearably hot; although as Duncan looked around the room he realised none of the pupils seemed to be unduly bothered. He retrieved a tissue from his pocket to wipe away a trickle of sweat running down his face, noticing as he did, that he had pins and needles in his hands. He took a deep breath. His chest felt as if someone had sat on him, and just when it occurred to him this was something new to worry about, he was overcome with an insistent urge to vomit. Without time to run to the bathroom he reached for the wastepaper bin and threw up.
    He was aware of the sudden uproar in the classroom; cries of disgust and chairs scraping across the floor, as pupils stood up in horror.
    ‘Mr Robertson, are you alright?’
    ‘Oh my God, that’s disgusting.’
    ‘Ewww! That stinks. ’
    ‘Shut up , you moron!’
    ‘Mr Robertson! Mr Robertson, are you OK?’
    Duncan staggered to his feet and then fell heavily to the floor. He heard a scream and then nothing. His eyes were open, but he did not see a girl from the front row rush towards him, or the boy sitting next to her run out into the corridor, yelling for help. He did not feel the girl rolling him on to his back and tugging at his tie to undo it, her hands trembling at the shock of having to put her newly acquired first-aid skills to use. He did not feel her start to do chest compressions, nor hear the sound of her