‘Are you or are you not in a relationship with Miss Penny?’
Jamie clenched his fists. ‘That’s none of your goddamn business,’ he managed to get out through his gritted teeth.
Nigel sighed. ‘I’m afraid it is, when it affects the other students.’
‘How is it affecting the other students?’
‘Right, well,’ Nigel looked down at a piece of paper in front of him, then back up at Jamie. ‘Apparently “favouritism”, leading to prime learning opportunities being denied to other students. “Embarrassing situations and comments” in teaching sessions and lectures, which have proved at best a distraction and at worst very distressing for the students involved.’
‘Can I see that?’ Jamie asked, holding out his hand.
‘I’m afraid the complainant has asked to remain anonymous.’
‘Onecomplaint? All this overonecomplaint? I can tell you exactly who “the complainant” is, and that snivelling little prick has had a more detrimental effect on his colleagues’ educational experience than anything I’ve done this year.’
‘This may only be one complaint, Dr Grantham, but you are actuallylivingwith one of your students. You can’t argue with that.’
‘She’s not a schoolgirl, Nigel,’ Jamie retorted. ‘And I am not her direct supervisor.’
‘But youarein charge of the education programme. You’ve got to admit that makes the situation look a bit dodgy. Look, I’m sorry but the deanery has put its foot down with this. For the moment you’re going to have to keep a low profile on the education front. In fact …’ Nigel cleared his throat, looking uncomfortable for a moment, ‘I’ve had to ask Dr Maitland to take over your SIM training today.’
‘Terry? You asked Terry to do it? Nigel, Terry is an unmitigated twat. The last time he helped with SIM training he suggested that the students take a history from the dummy so that he could speak to them through the microphone from the other room. He couldn’t even understand why that was weird. Believe me, it took a long time to explain why a seventy-thousand-pound piece of simulation equipment shouldn’t be used for pointless role-play that could be done with an actual human face-to-face.’
Nigel looked away from Jamie and shifted uncomfortably again before clearing his throat.
‘Christ,’ Jamie swore, pushing up to standing so suddenly that Nigel jumped in his chair. ‘That is what he’s doing, isn’t it? He’s using that state-of-the-art equipment to fuckingrole playwithout having to look the students in the eye.’
‘If there was any other way of sorting this out, Jamie, believe me I would have gone for it. But there’s no getting around the fact that you are shacked up with a student, which is just not the done thing when you’re Education Director.’
‘Fine,’ Jamie said, stalking to the door, ‘let Terry-Twat-Maitland use up valuable SIM time on pointless bullshit. Maybe you lot will realise how much bloody extra work I put in to keep the shit going week in, week out.’ He shut the door behind him before Nigel could respond, and looked at his watch. For a moment he panicked, thinking he was already five minutes late for teaching, but then he froze. He’d been complaining for three years about the amount of time the teaching took up, but now, faced with a free afternoon, he couldn’t think of anything he wanted to do with it.
*****
‘Where’s Jamie?’ Libby whispered to Kira, as Daisy, the first of the students picked to take a history, went up to talk to SIM-man, who was propped up in the bed with his head turned toward the seat that Daisy was about to take. She looked back at the other students for a moment, a slightly bewildered expression on her face, and then jumped as SIM-man gave a dramatic groan.
‘What is the point of interviewing a bloody dummy?’ Paul, one of the other students in the row in front of Libby and Kira said. ‘This is mad. Where’s that weirdo gone anyway? Is he seriously talking to Daisy through a mic from another room?’ Paul turned to Libby. ‘Listen, where’s your bloke? We need some proper teaching here, with the vivas coming up. Not this dickwad playing “let’s pretend”.’
‘I don’t know, honestly,’ Libby whispered back. She was starting to get a bad feeling about Jamie’s absence, which only intensified when she saw Toby’s barely suppressed smirk when he caught her eye. She turned fully to him and frowned.
‘What did you do?’ she hissed, feeling her face flush with anger and embarrassment.
‘What? Me?’ Toby asked. ‘I don’t know what you’re talking about.’
‘Argh!’ Paul groaned and punched Toby on the arm. ‘What did you do now, you complete tosspot?’
Quite a few of the students were now directing angry glares at Toby.
‘Hey!’ he whisper-shouted. ‘I’m not the one banging the Educational Director, all right? If you want someone to blame for Dr Freak Show taking our teaching, maybe you should think about that.’
Libby felt Kira’s hand curve around hers and stared straight ahead, willing the tears she could feel building not to fall.
‘You’renot banginganyone, you pillock,’ Paul spat out to Toby in disgust. ‘Maybe you should concentrate on your own issues for a change.’
Libby managed a tight smile for Paul and successfully blinked away the moisture in her eyes to get through the rest of the lecture. Okay, so Toby must have complained, and yes, hewasa tosspot and a pillock. But she had to face facts: if it weren’t for her relationship with Jamie he’d be teaching them right now. She paled as she considered the fact that she was directly affecting his livelihood. Okay, so she knew he didn’t need the extra money, but his career was important to him. And she knew he loved it, he was good at it. All the students would be worse off because of her.
‘Miss Penny.’ The sharp voice from the front of the room cut through her frantic thoughts and she jumped before looking up. ‘You may have been allowed to daydream through my predecessor’s teaching sessions,’ Dr Maitland said, having finally emerged from the side room, ‘butIexpect your full attention.’ Libby felt the heat creep up from her neck and flood her face. All eyes in the room turned to her and she wanted to melt into the chair with embarrassment. ‘Now, as I was saying: what did Daisy leave out of the history?’
There was a long pause and Dr Maitland’s face began to look decidedly smug. Libby swallowed past her dry throat and forced herself to speak. ‘She forgot to ask about perineal sensation,’ she said, willing her voice not to break or waver. The smugness in Dr Maitland’s expression morphed into annoyance and he gave her a sharp nod before dismissing the room.
