I ALMOST KISSED A NAUSEOUS SWISS GIRL

In my final week of being misleadingly described as Social Organiser, I had reached a serene state in which I was past caring about pleasing the terminally sullen, making small talk to the genetically petulant or trying to seduce the unrelentingly critical. As far as I was concerned, the experiment had failed, the shop had held its closing down sale, and after seeing out the week, I would never again be foolish enough to volunteer to be a poorly remunerated stand-in for a Butlins redcoat. Being nice to foreign students is no way to make a living, I had concluded.

The very last event I concocted that summer was a boat trip, to be held on the last Friday evening in August, which would be my last night with the students, most of whom would be going their various ways over the weekend. The voyage would start from a local quay, head out across the harbour and up a river to a small historical market town. Then, after an hour, we would gently chug back. The way things were going I was fully prepared for the boat to sink in a freak squall, or get rammed by a cross-Channel ferry, and whilst boarding I was careful to make a mental note of exactly where the lifebelts were situated. At the very least, I envisaged a majority of the students being violently seasick, and was girding my loins for the inevitable bleating that would accompany such catastrophe.

In fact, against all expectations, the evening was an utter delight. The sun took a long time to cool that night, the breeze was gentle and the atmosphere on board was one of pure enchantment. There was music and beer and laughter, this time not at my expense. Students stood at the prow, dresses flowing in the wind, like in a rather tacky, low-budget Titanic remake. I tried to relax, but the summer had made me wary of premature champagne cork popping.

We reached the historical market town and all headed for a pub. All, that is, except H, the Turkish monument complainant, who, despite the gathering darkness, preferred to seek out the ninth-century town walls. I felt little doubt that this endeavour would engineer another solution-free grievance, especially as the walls in question were more unrecognisable earth mounds than towering fortifications. To my surprise, however, he met us back at the boat an hour later without so much as a whimper, much less a bang.

Then, on the way back across the harbour, something miraculous happened. A penny-pinching Swiss student, one of my fiercest critics throughout the summer who had taken it upon herself to badger me relentlessly about why I’d made some of my more dubious decisions, sidled up to me one last time, I fancied for one last pop. At the time I was standing alone, gazing at some floating effluent on the starboard side that I was having trouble identifying. Turning to look at her, just for a split second, I conisdered jumping overboard. Looking a little tipsy, she smiled genuinely, her nose wrinkling charmingly. “Now this is a great evening,” she slurred brightly, “this is the best evening I have had in England.” (Actually I don’t think she used the present perfect “I have had” correctly, but I wasn’t about to give her a private lesson). I felt a sudden, overpowering urge to kiss her, which would have been the closest I had got all summer to any fraternising with the enemy, but, before I could furtively jump her, she manoeuvered herself to the side of the boat and disgorged extravagantly into the calm, black waters beneath. I tried not to take it personally.

Whenever there’s a poe-faced student in the TEFL classroom, we become overwhelmed by a desire to make that person happy, to see them smile and participate in proceedings with relish. It’s not a compassionate response to a fellow human being’s suffering, it’s a grim challenge that becomes all-consuming, almost a phobia to be faced down and overcome. Their negative energy pollutes the space they occupy, and, if we are not careful, contaminates those in their vicinity. We can have twenty contented, smiley faces in a class, but the one that looks bored or mirthless invariably becomes the focus of our attentions, as we manically do all we can to please them. If they do eventually come around, the resulting sense of relief instils in us a belief in a better tomorrow, and so it was on that delightful summer boat trip after I received a heartfelt compliment from a nauseous Swiss girl, and had a lucky escape by not getting kissy with her.

As I bid the students farewell that night with mixed feelings of deliverance from damnation and an anomalous, nostalgic melancholy, I began to wonder if it wouldn’t be fun to arrange a similar event the following summer...