Rhinoceros 4
Cameras, phones, iPods, tablets. All very clever, interchangeable, ubiquitous. Alan didn’t rate most technology – it wasn’t necessarily that he was a Luddite, more Utilitarian in his approach – but he enjoyed walking and listening to Richard Hawley through big, soft headphones. A very useful way of ignoring people.
He’d bought himself a new camera for Christmas. Very small, idiot-proof, and it took films, too. He pretended to himself that there wasn’t an ulterior motive, that he wasn’t the sort to hold grudges. Not forgiving, philosophical Alan. But there was no escaping the facts. And these included a series of dangerous and probably illegal acts conducted by Alan whilst in the employ of the City Council. There are laws about all of this, after all. Libel laws, for example. Defamation, is it? Confidentiality? Safeguarding? Filming a senior leader in an incriminating act... Filming teenage boys... He occasionally tried to imagine the context of his recent actions laid out for a jury in a court. He concocted a series of arguments, including provocation, professional concern, justice and revenge, and the jury, all good and wise, would nod sagely and his guilty conscience would start to fade away. But then his imagination would defy his own fantasy, and produce some hotshot lawyer who would demolish all his arguments with the bald facts: ‘Yes, but you did secretly film children and adults during work in order to….’ In order to what? Blackmail? Frighten? Enforce a vigilante version of justice? Alan didn’t even get as far as following through his motives, he just carried out the filming and then fretted.
And there were other truths, Alan realised, in this muddle. The Head at Greenlands School, for example, was the custodian of dry, troublesome truths that lay in a web of procedures all leading, from Alan’s perspective, to the same trap: dismissal. The Head had coldly constructed Alan’s current situation out of those precise, text book words he loved to use. Informal Capabilities. Inadequate Lessons. Significant Concerns. Poor Planning and Assessment. It was like he was slowly building a gallows with the OFSTED framework. And it had knocked Alan sideways when the Head had calmly ushered him into his tidy office and uttered those words. ‘The evidence is plain to see,’ he had said. ‘Just following policy.’
Well, maybe, Alan thought, he was coasting somewhat, getting over the divorce (albeit amicable and two years ago), moving into the flat, getting his life sorted (or perhaps that should be 'settled', like years of dust). But the Head’s campaign – and it did have the feel of a war – had the tone of a vendetta, the actions personalised, the aim his removal. There seemed to be no discussion, no opportunity for negotiation. Is this how it always is, Alan asked himself? There were the ‘drop-ins’ to his lessons, the ‘friendly and supportive’ checks on his marking, ‘informal’ chats with the teaching assistants. It was all gathering into a rumbling, expanding storm cloud, pulsating over every aspect of his life.
What difference, then, would a bit of secret filming make? Alan could, at a stretch, and if he forced himself to think about it, call it a kind of Insurance Policy. And the films are easily deleted if he should come to his senses, which he felt he surely would quite soon. If only the Head would back off a little, give some space. And Alan rationalised his actions, finally, in that way: that it was the Head who was forcing the issue, that Alan’s actions were directly caused by the Head, and could only be stopped by him.
In a school like Greenlands there were plenty of incidents. Threats, aggression, damage. And restraints. Of course it was almost impossible to operate by the book every time. And from certain angles a legitimate and legal restraint could easily look...well, suspicious. So the Head’s flying tackle of little Alix could certainly be justified, in the context of his erratic behaviours and taking note of the fact that he was running straight through the gates towards the main road. But filmed from the medical room and crudely edited it looked, positively, and without having to stretch the imagination at all, criminal. That delicious little movie clip looked like a serious, illegal, physical assault on a vulnerable young boy. And on the unusual scales of justice Alan had constructed for himself, that short film easily balanced the Head’s capability proceedings against this most benign and longstanding, long suffering member of staff. Alan could easily conjure up a piteous tear for himself at this point.
But still, Alan increasingly questioned his actions with a sleep-defying regularity. He had created ten reasons for destroying the camera to every one which attempted to explain his basest motivations. But still he made his shaky, hopeful, impromptu attempts at cinema verité. And every now and then he recorded a little gem of misconstrued, out-of-context action.
Certainly it had been noted how rudely Alan had finished his meal and left. Annie had nodded knowingly to the others and even, Alan noted with some irritation, to the other diners, who had been drawn into his life by her increasing loudness. “Don’t let us keep you,” she had announced, “lots to do in that box of a flat of yours with no TV, even.” Jen was flustered but still making attempts to glue together the broken pieces of the evening. Her features in this process of animated struggle, Alan realised, were increasingly attractive to him. “It’s OK,” she had said, “it’s getting late anyway.” And she had fussed around with her bag and scarf trying to look busy. As Alan mumbled something about ‘some planning he had to do for tomorrow’ Robert, in an aside of astonishing acuteness, for him, had said to Alan, “It’s not always the device, it’s what’s on it that’s the issue,” and he looked , briefly, knowing, before returning to his more usual dirigible features and helping Annie with her coat.
Of course Alan raced home and immediately ripped open every draw and box file, flung the contents of his cupboards across the floor and upended bag, bin and box. And even as he checked the rechecked and threw more and more files and cables and fobs and empty packaging across the carpets he knew all along that the camera had gone.
And with its absence grew an emptiness inside Alan, a growing excavation into which he could locate all his self pity and anger. The social disgrace of his unhinged actions went in there along with Jen’s freckled, forgiving features and Annie’s admonishments. But most of all, he piled in all the events that had led him to placing on that camera, in such insignificant, unseeable binary data, the conditions of his downfall, those incriminating little films, shaky, zoomed-in, and utterly deliberate. And in this state he threw himself amongst the pointless rubbish tip of his life, its contents scattered across every surface of the cell he called home, huddled pathetically in his favourite chair, his eyes reddened and filled with gratifying, salty tears so that his surroundings could no longer be seen.
***
Alan picked up the receiver. He wiped his face with his sleeve, as though he could be seen by the person at the other end. “Hullo?”
“Mr Scope? Mr Alan Scope?”
“Who is it?”
“Good. I represent Franklin’s Security. I understand you have been the victim of an upsetting experience.”
“I’ve… Upsetting?”
“Have the police spoken to you yet about our superb range of security products?”
“You work for the police?”
“Well, we certainly work with the police. Already eight forces around the country recommend our products, including North – “
“Is that allowed?”
“Oh, there’s no obligation. Can I ask whether you live in a flat or a house?”
“Flat.”
“Floor?”
“Third.”
“Intercom entrance?”
“It was built in the 60s when there were no burglars. No.”
“Area?”
“S11.”
“Bedrooms?”
“What exactly do you sell?”
“In the area of security it would be better to ask what we don’t sell.”
“OK, what don’t you sell?”
“No, I meant – “
“Have you had an, erm, upsetting experience recently?”
“Well, that’s not – “
“Because if you had, you wouldn’t be pissing off vulnerable people with the pathetic pretence that you are providing a public service by scaring them shitless. Good day.”
“Oh – “
Alan put down the receiver gently and smiled. For a short period of time, he felt so much better.
