Tragedy

At the whiteboard, red marker poised, King heard his mobile vibrate in his jacket on the back of the chair, sounding like a distant goat. Ignore it, he thought. They'll think it's one of theirs. It’ll keep.
‘So, let’s have a look at ...’ he said, writing the Greek in a big, bold hand. ‘Anyone?’ He turned round to face them.
‘Catharsis,’ said Jackie, smiling, showing him those perfect teeth.
‘Good,’ he said. ‘Jackie is one of the few of you amateurs to have taken my advice and learned a bit of the language. There’s no way you can study Attic drama at undergraduate level without being able to understand it in the original.’ The usual sullen faces from most of the rest; Jackie, though, was leaning forward, pen over her pad; her long legs looking particularly, endlessly, enthralling lovely today in black woolly tights and her Daisy Dukes. ‘So, what’s my point here?’ he said.
Smartarse Ben Brent had his hand up again, back at middle juniors. ‘Catharsis is an Aristotelian concept, of course, not something Euripides would be aware of. Aristotle in The Poetics is only trying to prove the moral value of tragedy. But in Medea ...’
‘Right,’ King said, ‘let’s focus on Medea and its morality. Anybody want to remind us of the story? Give us Euripides’ pitch to the producers?’
Jackie’s mouth was open, her lips so red against the flawless pale skin. ‘Aging hero Jason plans to marry again, take a new rich young wife,’ she said. ‘But his current wife, Medea, sorceress and exile, who’s saved Jason’s life more than once, kills his bride to be, the bride’s father and, finally, despairingly, her own children to spite Jason. And then escapes to Athens. Free.’
‘Excellent,’ he said. ‘The moral of the tale being ...’
Nothing now from them. A broken wall of faces, like Troy on its last morning.
‘Come on,’ he said.
‘Well,’ said Jackie, ‘there isn’t one, is there? She gets away with a stack of murders. And Jason behaves like, well, like a complete bastard, I suppose. But he should behave with nobility. Aristotelian magnitude.’ She was looking at him now, quite hard, too, frowning. ‘Not very uplifting morally,’ she said. ‘Not even a little bit.’
‘But how often does this sort of thing happen?’ he said. ‘How often do people kill their children because their husband destroys their life?’
‘Every day,’ said Jackie. ‘You can read it in the papers, see it on telly, on the net, all the time.’
‘Yes,’ he said. ‘The miserable human race behaving miserably. And that’s Euripides ...’
‘Especially the men,’ said Jackie, frowning some more now, eyes still on his. ‘So, there is a moral, then.’
‘Yes?’ he said. ‘What?’ And she was looking over now in a way he’d not seen before, certainly not like the other evening ...
‘Well,’ she said. ‘Medea is semi-divine, isn’t she? Maybe she can do what she wants. But Jason, a hero, yes, but still just a man, can’t. And he’ll get old one day, be a sad old bugger – no love, no more princesses falling for him anymore, all his glory forgotten. Medea’s maybe like the moral force driving the first few nails into Jason’s coffin, reminding him that it’ll all be over soon for him and that he’s an ungrateful, selfish bastard ...’
‘But she kills his children ...’ he said
‘They’re hers, too, Jay,’ she said.
He looked at her. So bloody tasty. Bright kid, too. A spark there, a real spark; he’d noticed that from the beginning of the year. Intelligence, certainly, wit as well. Something worth ... nurturing. Really worth it. And all wrapped up in a body that didn’t just blow your mind ...
He glanced at his watch: three-thirty already. ‘OK. Time, I think, to knock this on the head, folks. Antigone and the political debate on Monday. OK?’
As they filed out, he went to his desk, and his hand was on his phone when he saw Jackie come over, the high breasts in her tight top, the slender arms ...
He let the phone drop back into his inside pocket.
Everyone else was gone now. And she was close, hugging that old satchel of hers.
‘How you doing?’ he said.
‘I’m OK,’ Then a hesitation. ‘About the other night ...’
‘Hmm?’ He gave her the wry cheeky-boy smile that had done the business so well for the last fifteen years.
Her weight dropped onto her left hip. ‘Jay, I think I shouldn’t have.’
‘Shouldn’t have?’
‘No,’ she said. ‘Shouldn’t have. I mean, you’re a great teacher and you’re still ... but it wasn’t right, Jay.’
‘Yeah, but ...’
‘Sorry,’ she said, turning. ‘I’ve got to go. See you around.’
He watched her: the neat little rear end swaying in her cut offs, the thick belt showing off the wasp-like waist.
Bugger it.
Sighing, he picked up his jacket, put it on. The gents was just opposite his room.
After a pee, he went to wash his hands, looking at his thick black hair in the mirror: the, yeah, distinguished flecks of grey at the temples. He pulled at the roller towel next to the basin, and remembered the SMS.
He took out his Nokia, punched the button, and read:
Have had enough, Jay. Going 2 school now pick up Jocasta & Haemon. Don’t bother looking for us. Will call tomorrow. Maybe. Goodbye. PS You haven't got a leg to stand on.
He read it through again. And again, left fist clenching.
‘Christ, woman,’ he said, his voice echoing off the tiles and the porcelain. ‘Jesus bloody Christ. You want a fight? Well, you’ve bloody got one.’
Looking up, he saw his reflection again: grim now, determined. He got closer, peering: something there he’d not seen before: like a line, a fold in his designer stubble ...
The beginnings of what was going to be a very ample double-chin.