Alasdair Gray
Mavis Belfrage
FOR
ALEXANDRA GRAY
WHEN SHE IS
MUCH OLDER
Table of Contents
Mavis Belfrage
A Night Off
Mr Goodchild
Money
Edison’s Tractatus
The Shortest Tale
Also by Alasdair Gray
Mavis Belfrage
Publicly funded learning was once greatly valued in Britain. The minimum school leaving age had been raised to sixteen. New schools and colleges were built and old ones enlarged. Folk who would have missed university courses in other decades were helped to them by government grants. A solemn young Scot called Colin Kerr went to a famous South British university where he won a fairly good second class philosophy degree. This would have finished his education had he not met Mavis Belfrage.
1
He was lecturing in the teachers’ training college of his native city. His students were nearly his own age but he thought them less intelligent. Some lecturers push ideas into listless brains by using forceful speech or by turning their classrooms into debating halls. Colin relied on repetition. He knew clever students found his method dull but thought he did most good by serving the majority. He also enjoyed putting complex ideas into simple, fluent sentences. During some monologues he was so hypnotized by the sound of his steady, quiet, distinct voice that he felt himself still at Cambridge.
One morning he spoke about what he called the Classical and Romantic theories of education, comparing teaching that strengthens a superior class by promoting obedience with teaching that strengthens individuals by suggesting a variety of choices. A distinct sigh and impatient movement interrupted him. It was not his habit to look straight at students but he knew their names and exactly where they sat. He said, “You seem restless Miss Belfrage. Do you want to say something?”
“No. I mean yes. What do you believe?”
“I’m sorry?”
“You’ve told us at great length how Plato and Rousseau disagree about what and why children should be taught. Who do you agree with?”
“I’ve no opinion.”
“You must! It’s your subject.”
There was a general stir of interest. He ignored it by gazing thoughtfully at the ceiling and saying, “Of course I feel … flattered that an attractive young lady believes I can add something to the thoughts of Plato and Rousseau, but I know them better than you do. They were geniuses. Their ideas will exercise the minds of thinkers for centuries to come. The best I can do is explain them.”
“That’s a very convenient attitude for you, Mr Kerr, but not for us,” said a sing-song Welsh voice from the back of the class. “You lecture adults on educational theory so need not choose between one theory and another. We will soon be managing classrooms of children. We will be forced to choose. I don’t think Mavis wants you to choose for her. It’s just that your lectures refuse to admit that choice is necessary. I think that sums it up?”
The voice belonged to Evans, a mature student who had sat beside Mavis Belfrage in that classroom, but not for a week or two.
“Your notion of choice is slightly absurd,” said Colin with a touch of impatience. “What you eventually teach will be chosen for you by the Scottish curriculum council. How you teach will be decided by the school you are in and some character traits inherited from your parents — most of them based on self-esteem.”
“That answers Mavis’s question!” said the Welsh voice triumphantly. “If you think individual choice absurd you are a conforming Platonist.”
“Wrong, Evans,” said Colin cheerfully. “Plato thought educators should persuade people to conform. I am a pragmatic materialist who believes that even educators do as things do with them. But knowing this won’t help anyone pass their end-of-term exam next week. My questions will be set on chapters two, five, nine and ten of Hoffman and MacKinlay’s Outline of Educational Theory. Memorize these and you can forget all about me. Make a note of that, everyone — chapters two, five, nine and ten.”
While most of the class scribbled in their notebooks he pretended not to see Mavis Belfrage sitting with folded arms and an ominous scowl.
“You will also get higher marks if you remember,” he added, “that while I expect no one to show interest in my opinions, I have no interest at all in yours.”
“Which is why you are such an uninspiring individ —” said Mavis sharply, then faltered and said “— lecturer.”
The whole class stared from her to him. He removed his spectacles and stared thoughtfully back, wiping the lenses with a small oblong of yellow chamois leather. The faces of all but Mavis appeared featureless to him now. Perhaps emphatic lipstick and eyeshadow made her defiant glare unusually distinct. The glare stimulated him. He smiled, said, “Probably,” and dismissed the class, pleased to have shown a fair-mindedness typical of Cambridge at its best.
A fortnight later he announced the exam results and asked Mavis Belfrage to visit his office in a free period of the following day.
2
Colin kept an office as impersonal as himself. One wall was the exact width of the door and two filing cabinets beside it. The cabinets had a row of text books and directories on top. The floor was just big enough for a desk with a chair before and behind it and a tin wastepaper basket. On the desk lay a phone, a clean glass ashtray for the use of visitors, a sheaf of pages covered with Mavis Belfrage’s bold, irregular writing. The only wall decorations were a calendar and class timetable. The one colourful object was a small cube made of yellow and blue interlocking plastic bricks. Colin was attaching something like a propeller to this when his door was knocked firmly, once. He dropped the object in a drawer, and opened the door saying, “Come in Miss Belfrage. Please sit down.”
“I won’t be here long will I?” she asked, erect and facing him. She was black-haired, gaunt, the same height as him and dressed (he thought) more attractively than the day before. She stood with right hand in the pocket of a trousersuit, the other gripping the strap of a bag slung from her shoulder. To stop himself looking hard at her he sat down and waited. She sighed, sat across the desk from him, took cigarette and matchbook from her bag, lit the cigarette and tossed a match into his ashtray.
He said, “I want to talk about your exam paper.”
“Yes. You want to apologize.”
“No!” he said, surprised and amused, “certainly not. I know you dislike my teaching methods — during the past term you’ve made that obvious. But I respect your attitude and don’t want you to think I gave you abnormally low marks out of bad feeling.”
“But you did.”
“No. Let us take your paper a question at a time.”
He lifted the sheaf from the desk. She said swiftly, “No need. Did I write anything stupid in that paper?”
“No.”
“Did I express myself badly?”
“You expressed your self magnificently.”
“Did I show I understood the subject?”
“You showed that you thoroughly understand it.”
“Yet you failed me.”