Chapter 1

"It's a man thing," I said, looking across at the young woman sitting opposite me. I saved my work and shut down the laptop, "don't worry; let me explain."

But I ought to start further back than that. I'm, well, let's just say 'over sixty'. I was married, very happily, for over thirty five years to Katherine, who was twenty years older than me. When she died, six years ago, I had no heart to continue in teaching. With all the rules and regulations, the stress, the paperwork and the bureaucracy (am I the only one who has problems even spelling that word?) there was no joy in it any more and I retired early. With that and insurance on my wife's life I could live fairly comfortably. The house was paid for, and I didn't need much.

On the other hand, I wasn't ready to fade away, so I took up invigilation. I gather I would be called a 'proctor' in America; I supervised examinations for a local University. Okay, theoretically it's principally to prevent cheating, but there's more to it than that. Ensuring a comfortable environment – not too hot or cold, not noisy. Ensuring students have sufficient paper, pens and pencils – spare calculators, erasers, pencil sharpeners, rulers ... Escorting them to the toilets when their coffee consumption has been excessive. You get the picture, I expect. Once I'd been at it for a year or two, I began to be asked to invigilate students with special needs – mental health problems (like panic attacks, for example) physical ones – injuries requiring that the student exercise for so many minutes each hour, dyslexic students that needed longer to write, or needed a computer ... all sorts of things. The University bent over backwards to give support as needed, and I loved it. Sometimes I would be a 'chief' in charge of one or more invigilators in a larger setting. That paid more, and could be interesting; especially if it was a 'disabled' venue with several different exams going on at the same time. Something I found particularly satisfying was supporting students emotionally when the pressure of the exams got too much. It was mainly the ones we used to call 'highly strung'. A few quiet words, perhaps an offer to fetch a cup of tea or coffee; on one occasion I got the student to breath into a brown-paper bag when she was hyper-ventilating.

One of the 'perks' of the job was watching the wide variety of young women, many of whom wore very little. I always tried to be discreet about it, and I don't think I ever made anyone feel uncomfortable. But what can I say? Tall or short, thin, fat or medium; blonde, brunette or redhead, I didn't mind. I particularly like legs, by the way, and just love the fashion for skimpy skirts or shorts. Dirty old man? Well, maybe. I rather suspect I'm far from the only male in my age-group that takes pleasure from watching the display around me. Isn't that why women dress that way?

Anyway, usually, I'd be assigned male students for one-to-ones, but apparently there wasn't a rule about it and from time to time necessity forced invigilators to supervise students of the opposite gender. As far as I know, there has never been a problem arising from this.

On the day in question, I'd been sitting in a room reading a novel while a pleasant, very modestly dressed young woman wrote a three-hour exam (with extra time, for dyslexia – so with preparation and reading time, four and a half hours for me). That's a long time. About half-way through, I became aware that she'd started to cry. Not a great fuss, just that I heard a sniffle of two and looked at her. Tears were rolling down her face.

I dug in my bag for tissues and went over to her.

"Hey. Have a tissue. What's up?" I held out the packet.

She took a tissue and started mopping up; the tissue was soon sodden and I just held the packet out. Once she'd calmed down, I tried again.

"Got a problem?"

"Not really. I just completely lost my train of thought and panicked. Thanks ... I'm okay now."

I went back to my book as she bent over the paper and began to write again. As usual, I warned her at forty-five minutes, thirty minutes, and five minutes to go. Moments after that, she sighed, stretched and closed her answer booklet.

"I'm finished." She held out the booklet to me – I took it, thanking her, and went to seal it in an envelope with the other paper-work. She stood; I thought she was going to say something, but it was just, "Goodbye – and thanks." before walking out.

I was hungry – over four hours with nothing but a bacon sandwich beforehand and a cup of coffee which I finished shortly after starting her off. I wasn't far from Information Processing, though, so I went and handed the script in before heading for the cafeteria.

The University kitchen is ... shall we say variable ... in their offerings. Personally, I'm not fond of unusual combinations – rosemary and lamb casserole comes to mind. Not unusual? Perhaps not, but rosemary is a pretty powerful herb and completely drowned the flavour of the lamb. But I digress. They do a pretty good chicken tikka, though, and that's what I went for. I could fork it up in between working on the laptop.

I'd finished eating and was sipping at my coffee whilst typing when I was aware of a diffident throat clearing behind me. Looking up, I saw the girl who'd just sat an English paper ... name? Philippa ... something.

"Er ... do you mind if I sit there?" She pointed to a seat opposite me.

"Not at all," I was perplexed, but gave a mental shrug.

"I don't want to disturb you..."

"But you're going to, anyway?" I smiled, to hopefully take any sting out of my words.

She blushed. "Could I talk to you?"

"That'd be my pleasure," I said lightly.

"You're teasing me," she commented, as she sat.

"A little," I said.

"You were very kind when I got upset."

I looked at her seriously, "that's part of my job," I said.

"No," she said firmly, "it was more than that. You made me feel that you cared. And because you were so calm and... there, I calmed down and got on with the exam. I might not have, if you hadn't been there ... with a packet of tissues."