12. Poetry in the raw

Funny things, names. W H Auden said of them, "Proper names are poetry in the raw. Like all poetry, they are untranslatable."

I'm not going to attempt to explain what he meant by that but I know what I think and I agree with him. They are all made up and yet some sound more made up than others. At some time in the past there must have been the first John, the first William and the first ever Britney.

I believed until recently that the first ever Wendy was Wendy Darling created by JM Barrie in Peter Pan, first published in 1904. Now, however, I discover that there was a Wendy in the 1881 census and so there goes another ‘fact’ from my stockpile.

In Cayman, most first names appear to be recently made up and if the name isn’t, then the spelling is. In the class I help is a girl called Jackleen and a boy named Quert (Kurt). Anique told me yesterday that she has two sisters: Janique and Danique. I suppose that they are saving Manique for number four.

I am told and I can only assume that it is true, that in a nearby primary school there are identical twin brothers who are both called Jahmal Whatmore, as is their father.

Yesterday during the literacy period, I was sitting next to Rozzard. He sits at Table 1. The tables are setted and Table 1 is made up of the least able students and Table 4 has the six brightest ones but I never get to meet them.

Rozzard is a totally engaging 10-year-old boy whom I introduced to you in my account of Sports Day; very assertive but sometimes aggressive to the other kids and he is completely bone-idle. He stops working the moment I move away from him and will only resume when I return. He sits at Table 1 because he comes bottom in every assessment exercise that he ever does because he just won’t do them. He will sit for half an hour and stare out of the window.

Rozzard is much brighter than he appears. We were working out the factors of numbers 1 to 30 the other day and he pointed out to me that 1, 4, 9, 16 and 25 all had an odd number of factors and that they were also all square numbers. When I asked him if all square numbers had an odd number of factors, he worked out the factors of 64 and 100 and then told me that as they did, they probably all did. I honestly hadn’t known that before until he told me.

This morning, the school secretary came in to the classroom with a message for Rozzard telling him that he was to go home immediately because his mother had locked herself out and needed his key to get in. He lives 15 minutes’ walk away. Ms Hunte was delighted because it meant at least half an hour without having to worry about what he was up to. I spoilt things a little though by offering to drive him home.

We got into my car with Rozzard sitting in the front passenger seat. I started the engine and immediately the car radio came on. I pressed the button to turn it off but I pressed the wrong one and instead of silence, the CD that was in the slot came on and we were engulfed with the sweet, angelic, melodic tones of Lily Allen singing, “Fuck you. Fuck you very, very mu-u-u-u-u-uch.”

Rozzard went bonkers. I explained to him that my wife had used the car last and that was her CD, not mine. I don’t think he believed me because he started to tell his Mum about it before he handed her the key. He was so excited that he was incoherent and I don’t think she understood him but she will this evening when he has calmed down.

When we got back to school, neither the teacher nor I could stop him making a public announcement to the class. They all understood him unfortunately.

The activity that Rozzard and the other four were doing in Literacy was to think of as many words as they could in three minutes that began with certain letters. I awarded a point for every word written down. This way we have a winner at the end and as they are all very competitive, they try hard. The first starting letters were “ex-”.

After three minutes, they all had some. Anique had seven but I had to disallow ‘ex lover’ which upset her greatly. Rozzard had two.

The next start was “re-”. Three minutes of peace and quiet while they all scribbled away. This time they all had at least five but I had to disallow all of Rozzard’s because Kym grassed him up and told me that he had an open dictionary under the desk and he had been copying. When I saw that the first of his words was “remembrance”, I believed her.

Rozzard was indignant. “That one didn’t come out of the dictionary,” he snapped, pointing at REZZARD.

“No,” I said, “it didn’t but that’s just your name spelt wrongly and so it doesn’t count. If it were a real name you’d score a point.”

“It is a name,” he said sulkily.

“Whose?”

“My brother’s.”

I checked with Ms Hunte and it is.