Huts67

I tried to grow sideburns, that were not as radical as a Fuckyou- Zapata moustache, but said something about being cool, and with it. But all I could muster was crinkly cut curls that hung above my ears. I’d my first year exam coming up and that made it even worse. If I was going to be a dropout I had to look the part. I wasn’t worried. Not really.

Barry Ferguson told us at the initial pre-exam-exam meeting, that this wasn’t really a meeting, more a discussion. But it felt like a meeting, with students sitting ramrod straight, in the auditorium. Maureen Hargreaves , as usual, was just in front of me, her blonde hair tied up in a complex chignon that made her seem older and less pregnant. Gillian Ambrose was sitting behind me, but I didn’t want to turn in case she waved, or made a sharp movement that cut through silence; where even breathing was too loud a noise. I was teetering on the edge of gasping at a lungful of cold air, and provoking mass hysteria.

James Munn’s seriousness, in a way, put us more at ease than Barry Ferguson’s casualness. By the time James Munn went through a whole list of does and don’ts, with everybody’s pens scribbling, we began to relax. When someone farted, the sniggering that ensued was as if we had all been carted back to a Mrs Boyle’s Primary 1 classroom. And James Munn’s quizzical look made it even worse.

I wrote down everything James Munn said. Even when he sneezed, I think I wrote 'sneeze'. He went on and on about being affiliated to Glasgow College of Nursing and how the exams would come to reflect University training, rather than the workplace experiences that were common before JM (James Munn). And how this was a great opportunity, that this new curriculum and Diploma would be a passport to academic excellence. He looked up and I could already see he was picking out the losers. I felt like sticking my hand up and just saying: ‘I’ll just have the old bit of paper that says I’m a nurse, well worth the £2.11d’. But I didn’t. I looked away when he got to me.

The funny thing was, for all James Munn’s verbosity, the thing that stuck most, was when he asked Barry if he wanted to add anything, at the end of the session.

‘Aye,’ said Barry, strolling to front of the auditorium and blinking, like the rest of us, in the academic spotlight, ‘Don’t worry. Nobody has ever failed the end of year exam. I even passed it.’

Usually, that would have got a laugh. But there was a stunned silence. Jesus-fuck, I thought, I’m going to be the first person ever to fail the exam, and I’ll be an auxiliary, getting paid buttons to clean shitey nappies in Morrison ward, even if I lived until I was about 50 and really old. And as I looked at the faces around about me I knew they were thinking the same thing.

And what made it worse, was when I remembered how happy mum had been when I became a student. She was successful as a mum. Dad was successful on the roads, as a grafter, and a Union man. It was a straight line from success to success- to the shitey nappy son-that had failed them. I couldn’t wait to get outside and find out where the Glendevon Hospital Library was, so that I could study non-stop.

I must have been in some kind of trance. I passed Maureen Hargreaves without even looking at her. It was all right for her. When they found out she was pregnant they’d boot her out and she wouldn’t have to sit the exam. And babies had small arses. I was going to be dealing with arses the size of a Minis or Austin Allegros.

Barry Ferguson was outside the auditorium, leaning casually against the wall, smoking a fag, as if he didn’t have a care in the world.

‘You goin’ for a pint?’ he said, smiling at me, affably enough, as if it was just a normal day, and not two weeks until the exam that determined the outcome of my whole life.

‘No!’ I said outraged.

‘What kind of things are they goin to ask in the exam?’ I blurted out.

‘Just the usual kind of stuff,’ he said, as we walked down by Bluebell Woods, ‘genetics, the twenty-third chromosome that determines Down’s; anoxia; the role of environmental stressors; different causes of epilepsy, such as viral encephalitis; and he might even fling in something about modern drugs such as Thalidomide’.

I’d heard of Thalidomide, that was the thing that gave you wee arms. ‘Wait a minute,’ I said, scrambling through my bag for a pen.

But Barry Ferguson just kept on walking, ‘fuck-off,’ he said. ‘You goin’ for a pint, or not?’ he asked, as we came to the junction between the road and the dirt path to my house.

‘I’ll just have one,’ I said, ‘to calm me down’.

The week before the exam we were back in the same auditorium. James Munn stood in his usual advanced position, with two blackboards and Barry Ferguson as a backdrop.

‘This is just a mock exam, but,’ James Munn stressed, ‘it shall be taken under exam conditions. That means you have three hours to complete the exam. There are four essay type questions. You must answer one question from the first section. This section deals with the basic biology and physiology of nursing that you are no doubt familiar with.’ He dismissed it with a wave of his hand. ‘I’d advice you to spend 30 minutes on that question.

‘The next section has two questions and is a little more difficult.’ He smiled when he spoke, leaning into the podium, as if he’d told himself a great joke. ‘I’d expect you to take a bit longer here. About an hour-per-question. I’d expect you to mention something of the interplay of social background and neurology in the classification of mental handicap. The better answers will, of course, suggest what extent these factors contribute to such identities.’ He stood up straighter, looking at us in a way that suggested that he was going to feed us pudding, after an exciting dinner.

‘The final question, I’d suggest you spend about an hour on…but if you’re finished before that leave quietly. It’s about the treatment of Mental Handicap by behavioural and cognitive therapies’.

‘That’s it,’ he said, clapping his hands together at his own smartness. ‘Mr Ferguson will give out the exam papers and monitor your performance. As it is so close to the actual exam I won’t be marking them, but will be very glad to deal with any queries you may have.’ He flashed his perfect teeth at us, to shown how happy he would be. And, what seemed as an afterthought he added, ‘I need to drive down to Cambridge for a meeting, but I’ll see you all next week. Enjoy’.

I didn’t know if I was more anxious than most others in the hall. I’d maybe calmed down too much during the week. I was leaving nursing anyway, and going to go down to London to find Norean Killeen. That, and knowing it couldn’t be that difficult to find her, made me feel better.

‘Wait until Mr Munn is away before you turn the exam paper over,’ said Barry Ferguson, adding a little levity to the strained exam proceedings, and making us all feel better.

As he dashed from desk to desk, nobody turned over the exam papers, because we didn’t know if he was just kiddin’ on. But, as I was leaving; I turned mines over immediately. That prompted a paper rush, as everybody copied me. Even though I didn’t have sideburns, it felt good being the cool guy.

I must have picked up some kind of knowledge by osmosis from Wullie the Pole and Barry. I wasn’t sure about some of the questions, but jotted down some notes and felt able to sketch out some answers.

Barry stood at the front of the podium as everyone was scribbling away. ‘Ooops,’ he said in mock horror, putting his hand to his mouth in a pantomime mime, ‘I may have inadvertently given out next week's exam papers instead of these mock exam papers’.

There was an unopened yellow folder lying on his desk. ‘I’ll need to go and run off another set and collect those off you so that I can destroy them when I come back…’ Barry looked at his watch. ‘…in about twenty-minutes’.

I could write pretty quickly when under pressure, but it didn’t take me long to copy the exam questions down. I sat, for about 15 minutes, waiting, for him to come back. Those nearest the door drifted out first.

‘Thanks,’ I said, handing Barry a pint in The Horse and Barge’.

‘For what?’ he said, looking at me, as if he hadn’t done anything.

That made me think that he’d been bluffing, and had actually given us the mock exam papers, and said they were the real exam papers. I didn’t know what to say.

‘Nobody’s ever failed the qually,’ said Barry, shaking his head and smiling.