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wasn’t.
    Cloisters, ancient libraries … I was confusing learning with the smell of cold stone. If I had gone to Oxford I’d probably never have worked out the difference.
    Mrs Lintott Durham was very good for history, it’s where I had my first pizza. Other things, too, of course, but it’s the pizza that stands out.
    And fog, would you believe, one morning inside the cathedral. I loved it.
    I wish some of them were trying to go there.
    Hector No chance.
    Mrs Lintott No. Our fearless leader has made up his mind.
    And they are bright, brighter than last year’s. But that’s not enough apparently.
    Hector It never was, even in my day.
    Mrs Lintott Poor sods.

    Scripps I’d been on playground duty, so I saw him on what must have been his first morning waiting outside the study. I thought he was a new boy, which of course he was, so I smiled.
    Then Felix turned up.
    Irwin is a young man, about twenty-five or so .
    Headmaster You are?
    Irwin Irwin .
    Headmaster Irwin?
    Irwin The supply teacher.
    Headmaster Quite so.
    He beckons Irwin cagily into the study .
    Scripps Hector had said that if I wanted to write I should keep a notebook, and there must have been something furtive about Irwin’s arrival because I wrote it down. I called it clandestine, a word I’d just learnt and wasn’t sure how to pronounce.
    Headmaster The examinations are in December, which gives us three months at the outside … Well, you were at Cambridge, you know the form.
    Irwin Oxford, Jesus.
    Headmaster I thought of going, but this was the fifties. Change was in the air. A spirit of adventure.
    Irwin So, where did you go?
    Headmaster I was a geographer. I went to Hull.
    Irwin Oh. Larkin.
    Headmaster Everybody says that. ‘Hull? Oh, Larkin.’ I don’t know about the poetry … as I say, I was a geographer … but as a librarian he was pitiless. The Himmler of the Accessions Desk. And now, we’re told, women in droves.
    Art. They get away with murder.
    They are a likely lot, the boys. All keen. One oddity.
    Rudge. Determined to try for Oxford and Christ Church of all places. No hope. Might get in at Loughborough in a bad year. Otherwise all bright. But they need polish. Edge. Your job. We are low in the league. I want to see us up there with Manchester Grammar School, Haberdashers’ Aske’s. Leighton Park. Or is that an open prison? No matter.
    Pause .
    There is a vacancy in history.
    Irwin ( thoughtfully ) That’s very true.
    Headmaster In the school.
    Irwin Ah.
    Headmaster Get me scholarships, Irwin, pull us up the table, and it is yours. I am corseted by the curriculum, but I can find you three lessons a week.
    Irwin Not enough.
    Headmaster I agree. However, Mr Hector, our long-time English master, is General Studies. There is passion there.Or, as I prefer to call it, commitment. But not curriculum-directed. Not curriculum-directed at all.
    In the circumstances we may be able to filch an hour. ( going ) You are very young.
    Grow a moustache.
    I am thinking classroom control.

    Classroom . Music. Posner sings some Piaf.
    Hector Où voudriez-vous travailler cet après-midi?
    Rudge Dans un garage.
    Boys Non, non.
    Scripps Pas encore. Ayez pitié de nous.
    Hector Dakin. Où voudriez-vous travailler aujourd’hui?
    Dakin Je voudrais travailler… dans une maison de passe.
    Hector Oo-la-la.
    Boys Qu’est ce que c’est?
    Qu’est-ce qu’une maison de passe?
    Posner A brothel.
    Hector Très bien. Mais une maison de passe où tous les clients utilisent le subjonctif ou le conditionnel, oui?
    He motions to Dakin, who goes off.
    Dakin knocks on door .
    Voilà. Déjà un client!
    Qui est la femme de chambre?
    Posner Moi. Je suis la femme de chambre.
    Hector Comment appelez-vous?
    Posner Je m’appelle Simone.
    Dakin knocks again .
    Akthar Simone, le monsieur ne peut pas attendre.
    Posner opens the door and curtseys .
    Posner Bonjour,