A Midsummer Night's Nightmare

The parents were waiting for us, and I noticed Saskia and 'da Boss' slip in amongst their fellow students. "It was wonderful Daddy, I want to be an actress." I heard Saskia say to her father.

"That's nice." He replied. From his answer I came to the assumption that he was used to agreeing with her whims.

Ellen Barrett came over to me. "Mr Smith, might I have a word with you? Not here, and not now, but would you come over to my place, say some time tomorrow after lunch?"

"What do you want to discuss?"

"That had better wait until tomorrow."

What was this all about? It couldn't be anything to do with Melinda's school work.

I was left wondering, and it took me all of my time to concentrate on the papers that I had to mark.

She answered the door almost before I knocked on it. "Come in won't you." I followed her into the living room. "Have a seat." She indicated the sofa. She sat in an armchair. "You will have been wondering what I wanted to speak with you about."

"Yes, the thought did cross my mind."

"It's about Melinda. There is something that I need to talk over with you while she's at the library."

"Oh. It can't be anything to do with her schoolwork."

"No, I'm happy with her progress, and I feel that it is in no small part because of you. My problem is that I'm of the opinion that she is in love with you."

"That would be a problem if it were true."

"Believe me it is. I found her diary when I was cleaning her room yesterday, and she certainly has a fixation on you. It is everywhere, all through, almost from the beginning of the year, and some of it is quite graphic, explicit."

"Believe me I have done nothing to encourage her feelings toward me."

"I'm aware of that. But then I wouldn't be so sure. I have read the comments that you've written on her assignments, you may not mean for them to be anything more than an encouragement for her work, but they could be construed to be something more personal, almost like something that a man would write to his girlfriend. I certainly took them in that way." She handed me one of the papers that I had marked recently, and while the intention was innocent enough, at least in my eyes, it could be seen in a different light.

"Oh." It dawned on me that maybe, just maybe, I was in love with Melinda. While in this state she was above the age of consent, it was against the law for a teacher to enter into a relationship with a student, and I could spend quite a long time in gaol, and from what I have heard happens in prison to men who have sex with young girls, life would not be very comfortable behind bars. "When I look at this from your perspective, I can see what concerns you. Let me tell you that there is no way that it can go any further. I promise you that I will do nothing that will harm Melinda in any way."

"I notice that you haven't actually said that you have no feelings for her."

"I would be lying to you if I denied having feelings for her, because I have, and if it weren't for the student/teacher relationship, I would not hesitate to pursue a relationship with her, after all I am not that much older than she, and she is exactly the type of girl that I have visions of marrying some day."

"Do you love her?"

Now this has put me very firmly on the spot. "I am not sure, mainly because I have been fighting my feelings for Melinda for some time, and it boils down to the fact that I have to suppress them for the sake of her reputation. I would like to remain friends with her, on a purely platonic basis. Having said that, should we remain friends, in a couple of years, after she has left school and is most probably at uni, and she is agreeable, then sure, I would love to take this further, hopefully to marry her."

"I understand your position, and agree with you that this would be for the best, hopefully she will also understand."

Melinda chose this very moment to arrive home. She burst through the front door and rushed into my startled arms. "I saw your car, I knew that you'd come to see me, you did come to see me didn't you? Please tell me you did."

"Melinda." Ellen said. "Mr Smith didn't come to see you." There was a bewildered look on Melinda's face, the emphasis was on the use of my formal name, and it was not lost. "I asked him to come, I needed to speak with him about you."

"What about me?"

"I needed to speak with him about your feelings for him." Melinda was concerned, could her mother know, really know, her feelings for her man?

"What do you mean?"

"I mean your infatuation with him, it has become an obsession, and I needed to discuss the ramifications of this."

"All right, I love him, is that so very wrong? He's not that much older than me. If that's your concern, think about the age difference between you and Daddy."

"That is not only irrelevant to your situation, it was completely different. He wasn't my teacher."

"Okay, so he was your boss, what's so very different between you being in love with your boss, and me being in love with my teacher?"

"Because there was no law preventing my situation, and there is in your case. It is illegal for a teacher to enter into a relationship with a student."

"But we haven't had sex."

"If Mr Smith hadn't been thinking of you, you probably would have by now."

"How do you figure that out? Are you trying to tell me that he doesn't love me? I know he does."

"That too is irrelevant." I decided that it was about time that I said something. "If I was to be in love with you, and I'm not saying that isn't the case, it can go no further. There can be no relationship because, if word were to get out, I would be dismissed and never be able to work as a teacher again. More importantly, your good reputation in this community would be forever tarnished, as would your mother's for not putting a stop to it."

"Mummy." Melinda pleaded. She was desperately trying to hang on to her dreams.

"Melinda, Dylan and I have discussed this situation, and while he has admitted to me that he does have feelings for you, he has decided that he must suppress those feelings, at least for the time being. If you truly love him, and this is not just a schoolgirl infatuation, then you must suppress your feelings for him, at least for the time being. I know that it's going to be hard for the two of you to act as if there is nothing going on between you, but you will have to do this, because, if it were to get out, Dylan will be sent to gaol for a considerable time, and he will be badly treated by the other prisoners. Now you do not want that to happen, do you?"

"No Mummy." She replied softly.

Life for us progressed as if there were no feelings between us, and it would have remained that way except for two events. The first was the dress rehearsal of the play.

There was a buzz of excitement about the students as their makeup was applied and last minute lines were rehearsed. All that is, except for Saskia. She made a fuss over her makeup until she was satisfied, all the while she was aloof to the other students.

The curtain went up and we were underway, and all was smooth sailing until Titania's entrance. Saskia missed her cue and the play ground to a halt until she could be found and propelled onto the stage. It went rapidly downhill from there, it became obvious that she did not know her lines, even when prompted (increasingly loudly from Maureen in the wings) she could not complete a line.

I saw Henry striding towards the steps onto the stage, his face red in anger. I ordered the curtains closed and waited for his onslaught. "What the hell is going on here? This ends right here and right now! I will not be made a laughing stock in this town by your incompetence! And as for this production, I asked for the traditional interpretation, not some modernist garbage. And as for the cast that you have chosen, none of them knew their lines, they continually left Saskia floundering when they could not provide her with the correct cues."

"It is not the fault of the cast, it is Saskia. She has made absolutely no effort to learn her lines, half the time she never showed up for rehearsals, and when she did the best she could do was to promise to learn her lines for the next time. If you were following the dialogue you would have realised that she was given the right cues, every time, but she stuffed up because she did not know her lines. As for the interpretation, I have anticipated that you would change your mind. Let this play open next Saturday night and I can guarantee it will be a success. I am so confident of the talents of these players that I have invited a couple of friends from NIDA to come and witness the production. I have two, possibly three, cast members who I believe will be successful should they audition for NIDA next year. If you choose not to allow this production to proceed I will arrange a private audition for them, and let the world know that you tried to squash their ambitions."

"I do not like your attitude young man. Your performance assessment will not be positive." He turned to walk away.

"Before you go, I should warn you that if you give me a negative assessment I will present the Area Supervisor with a record of all that has transpired between us this year. I would think long and hard about my next step if I were you."

"Are you threatening me?"

"If you are intent on taking it that way, that's your prerogative. I see it as me protecting my career from wrongful accusations." This might have sounded of bravura on my part, or even arrogance, but believe me it took all of my acting skills to pull it off.

The next onslaught began before Henry had made his escape. Saskia's father stormed onto the stage, she followed him. "Just what is happening here? I thought that you told me that my daughter would be the star of this play, and what do I find, that because of the incompetence of this alleged Director, and his cast of amateurs, she is being held up to ridicule. Believe me heads will roll, or this school will not get another dollar, another cent, from me. Is this understood?"

"William, this was just the dress rehearsal, we expected some problems." Henry was no longer the angry Principal, he was now obsequious in the face of anger. "I can assure you. (He glared at me) that it will be perfect by opening night."

"It had better be. Come my dear, we're going home." They stormed from the stage, followed a second later by a stumbling Henry.

"That went well." Maureen said. "A word of advice, if you are interested, that is."

"Yes?"

"Those copies of her assignments, I think that we all should gather yours and ours and send them all to the Area Supervisor as soon as possible. I wouldn't put it past Henry to conduct a witch hunt, just to cover his arse, and if he finds what we've been doing it could get very nasty. If it was just yours it would be seen as your personal vendetta, but if we all provide our evidence then he'll have no come back on you."

"I don't think that he'll do anything just yet, not while there is a chance that I'll blow it next Saturday."

"Is there?"

"Not a chance in hell."

"So who's the lucky girl that's going to be the star?"

"Melinda Barrett."

"I'd be careful with that one. You do know that she has a ginormous crush on you, don't you?"

"I'm aware of that, in fact her mother and I have discussed that very topic, and we have it under control."

"You'd better, if Henry were to find out it would be the end of your teaching career."

Saturday night, and it was the first night of our production of Shakespeare's 'a Midsummer Night's Dream'. Talk about organised chaos, there were people rushing around making last minute adjustments to the lighting and sound. Backstage, in the dressing rooms, makeup was receiving the finishing touches, costumes were being donned, and there was an atmosphere of calm that concerned me. I would have preferred some adrenaline boosting drama that would have the cast hyped up.

I should learn to be careful what I wished for. Just five minutes before the curtain was due to rise, Saskia waltzed in demanding her makeup to be applied and her costume readied for her. She sat in front of a mirror. "Makeup, now!"

"I'm sorry, but you are not in this play." I said it as calmly as I could.

"What do you mean I'm not in this play? I'm the star."

"No, I, we had to replace you. Let's face it, you didn't learn your lines, you've shown no interest in rehearsals, so I have had no option but to replace you."

"We'll see about that!" She stormed out to return minutes later with Henry in tow. "You tell them that I am the star."

"Henry, you must realise that the cause of last week's fiasco was your friend here, Saskia. She has shown no interest in this play, and expects everyone to forget what they have learned and follow her lead. If you want this production to reflect positively on you and this school, you will let us proceed with the stand-ins for both Titania and Oberon."

"My dear, Mr Smith has a point. You haven't been all that interested in this play. Shall we go and get a seat and watch these amateurs try to make sense of this." He was hedging his bets here, he knew that to insist on her taking the stage was courting disaster, so to counter her not being onstage, he was giving her the hope that it would be a disaster of my making, and she could claim that if she had been on stage it would have been a success.

As it was, the production went off without a hitch. All that work over the intervening week, the fine-tuning it without the benefit of a dress rehearsal paid off. The cast were on their fifth curtain call when Melinda rushed into the wings and grabbed my hand, dragging me onstage to take the final two curtain calls with them.

I had arranged a cast party at McDonalds and, after getting out of their costumes and removing the makeup, they all trooped off. I told them to start without me because I had something to do first. Melinda wanted to wait for me but I convinced her to go on ahead. "This is important, I need to speak to a couple of my friends before they head back to Sydney. I may have some good news for you. Go, I won't be long." She gave me a quick peck on the cheek and scampered off.

Ben and Helena came into the change rooms. "So, I assume that Titania is one of your future stars." Ben said.

"You presume right. What do you think?"

"Apart from the fact that she's in love with you and may not take direction from anyone else, I, we think that she's worth a try. Get her to fill out an application and we'll arrange an audition for her. There were a couple of others who could make the leap from amateur to professional with a bit of work, so get them to apply as well."

"Thanks guys. Now I have a cast party to attend."

"Be careful."

"Sure thing, it's all under control. See ya." With that we parted.

It was a noisy, happy gathering of friends. Orders had been taken, Melinda had ordered for me, and there were knowing looks from the others, and they sat chatting animatedly about how great the play was, and how well it had gone.

Melinda smiled when she saw me as I walked towards the restaurant from the rear car park. I just entered the flood of light from the windows when someone appeared from the shadows. "You bastard." It was 'da Boss'.

"Look, I had to drop her from the cast, she didn't know her lines."

"I don't give a shit about that."

"So what's the problem?"

"You bastard, you've only gone and knocked her up!" Those were the last things that I heard for some weeks.

"Dylan!" Melinda screamed as she leapt from her seat and rushed for the door. I was on the ground when she burst through the door, and 'da Boss' hit me a final time with the piece of steel pipe before turning and running away.

"Dylan, Dylan, can you hear me? Oh my God, no." She stared in horror at the blood on her hands. The rest of the cast arrived on the scene. "Quickly, someone, call an ambulance." Turning her attention back to me, "Dylan, darling, please don't die, please."

When something this big occurs in a country town, rumour and innuendo run riot. 'da Boss' was arrested within an hour of his attack on me, and his confession, and the reason for his attack, really opened up a can of worms. William Lewis hauled Saskia off to his doctor who confirmed that she was indeed pregnant, and he swore to move heaven and earth to make sure that I was prosecuted and spend the next, however many, years at the tender mercies of the prison population.

Henry instituted a search of my desk and all of my papers in the hope of finding anything that was incriminating against him. He was out of luck, all of Saskia's assessments were, along with those collected by her other teachers, safely locked up with the Area Supervisor. He had already had independent assessments carried out by experienced assessors on them, and a pattern had emerged, that caused him a great deal of concern. It did not bode well for Henry's career.

The police, acting on information received from William Lewis, had posted a guard on my door in the Intensive Care Unit at the local hospital until they were convinced by the doctors that I was going nowhere for the foreseeable future, along with a promise that they would be contacted as soon as I recovered consciousness.

When I had not regained consciousness after three weeks, I was transferred to a specialist hospital in Sydney.

My world plummeted into a deep abyss the day after I regained consciousness. Two men were ushered into my room, not just any two men, but two policemen. "Dylan Smith, or should I say Dylan Mawson, you are under arrest." It was obvious from his tone of voice that, because I was known at the school by a name other than me family name, that I had something to hide, and that made me guilty of the charge that was about to be made against me.

"Arrest, on what charge?" I asked. Even if I had been capable of rational thought, I could not think of anything that I could be charged with.

"That you abused your position as a teacher to engage in a sexual relationship with one Saskia Lewis."

"You've got to be kidding. Of all of my students, she would be the last that I would have sex with, with the possible exception of Matthew McIntyre." I thought that a little levity here might ease the tension that I was feeling.

"This is not a joking matter. It is a very serious charge and not to be taken lightly. There will be a bedside court hearing tomorrow. I suggest that you have your Lawyer present for that." With that they left me in a stage of confusion. What could I do from my bed? How could I prove my innocence of these charges? I buzzed for a nurse.

"Could you contact my parents and arrange for them to come and see me, as soon as possible. This is important."

My father promised to get to the bottom of this mess. He would get investigators onto it straight away, and see if he could find out who was responsible for Saskia's pregnancy. The obvious choice would have to be Mathew McIntyre, but in his statement to the police, he professed his innocence, claiming that he used a condom every time they had made love. He also stated that when she told him that she was pregnant, she also told him that the father was a teacher, and he assumed it to be me.

My slow convalescence meant that the trial could not go ahead for some six months. My Psychiatrist certified that, due to my PTSD, I was emotionally unfit to stand trial for some time. In the mean time I made some progress towards regaining the use of my legs, and was only after five months, and a great deal of physiotherapy, able to walk unaided, albeit in a slow shuffle rather than a brisk walk.

As it was, I was spared, after the prosecutors announced that all charges were to be withdrawn, the public scrutiny of a trial. I was also spared much of what emerged from my father's work. This had resulted in a more extensive investigation than the police originally thought necessary.