by Jilly Cooper
‘The London Eye perhaps, or Tate Modern. A lot of them have never been to the seaside or inside the cathedral or a museum.’
‘You’d trust them in a museum?’ said Cara incredulously.
‘Once they realized we did, they’d start behaving better.’
‘Which brings me to behaviour management,’ said Russell Lambert. ‘We notice you’ve introduced a new system of mentors.’
‘It worked very well at Redfords,’ said Janna defensively. ‘Means any kid can go to a mentor if they’re being bullied or have a problem. I had ten of the more responsible members of Year Eleven photographed last Thursday. Their pictures are now up in the corridors.’
‘A needless expense.’ Ashton smiled thinly. ‘Surely they could have brought photogwaphs from home.’
‘It made it more of an honour,’ said Janna. ‘They look really good.’
There was a knock on the door. It was Kylie Rose, come to collect her mother Chantal and bearing Cameron, a sweet jolly baby who’d inherited his mother’s blond, blue-eyed beauty. His charm was lost on Crispin Thomas, however, when his besotted grandmother thrust him into the deputy educational director’s arms, particularly when Cameron threw up on Crispin’s cream suit.
‘Come and see the mentors’ photographs,’ said Janna hastily, leading everyone off to admire the display, only to find the photographs had already been adorned with moustaches and squints, with the names crossed out and replaced by ‘Wanker’ and worse.
Janna promptly lost her rag again and shouted at anyone within range. She was just calming down when kind Kylie Rose tugged her sleeve.
‘You’re easily the best teacher in the school, miss.’
‘Am I?’ Janna was marginally mollified.
‘Easily the best at shouting,’ said Kylie Rose.
The governors smirked.
‘Phone for you,’ called Rowan from Janna’s office.
‘I’m busy.’
‘Says he’s an old friend from Redfords.’
Janna shot into the office.
‘I tried the cottage,’ announced Stew. ‘Somehow I knew you’d be still working.’
‘Oh Stew.’ How lovely to hear the broad, warm, measured Yorkshire accent.
‘How are you getting on, love?’
‘Horribly. It’s hell.’ Janna kicked her door shut. ‘I hate most of the staff. They gang up. There aren’t enough of them. The only nice guy’s been hijacked to head up another school. The deputy head’s a total lush.’
‘What about the kids?’
‘Animals, most of them.’
‘That’s not like you, Janna. What about your PA? She sounded friendly enough on the phone.’
‘Worst of the lot. She sneers, sneaks and pumps up my in-tray to demoralize me.’ Swinging round, Janna went scarlet; Rowan who must have quietly opened the door was standing outraged in the doorway. ‘I’ve got to go, Stew, ring me later at home.’
But Stew didn’t ring back. Why had she moaned so much?
Laugh and the world laughs with you, weep and you weep alone, her mother had always told her. If only she were still alive.
The fall-out was awful. Cara, backed up by Rowan, was straight on to Mike Pitts and the rest of the staff, reporting everything that had been said.
No one would meet Janna’s eye the next day. Molly the cook walked out. Even Wally, her dear friend, looked at her reproachfully, until she explained that she wanted to get in some gardening help, to free him for more important tasks.
That same morning, however, Debbie the cleaner, who’d been blown away by the big box of chocolates Janna had given her for blitzing the staffroom, came blushing into the head’s office. As she got on so well with Molly’s other assistants, how would Janna feel if they took over school dinners on a month’s trial?
‘Profoundly relieved,’ replied Janna. ‘Oh, Debbie, thank you, that’s the best bit of news I’ve had for ages. Start today.’
‘You deserve some luck,’ said Debbie. ‘Lots of us think you’re ’uman.’
Ironically, Janna was saved by the greatest tragedy. Towards the end of the day, which was 11 September, she was trying to explain Arthur Miller to a sullen group of fifteen-year-olds, who seemed only interested that he’d been married to Marilyn Monroe, when Rowan rushed in to say the World Trade Center had been hit.
Mike Pitts and Cara thought the school should carry on as normal. Janna insisted that this was history and the children must see it.
In no time, Wally had rigged up the big screen attached to a television in the main hall. The excited pupils lugged chairs in from the dining room to watch the terrible events unfold. At first, these were like so many Hollywood films, it was hard for them to understand it was the real thing. But they were soon screaming, sobbing and sometimes cheering. Janna stood to the side of the screen, explaining what was happening.
The Wolf Pack, when they first saw people leaping out of the flaming tower windows, exchanged glances, because they were always escaping that way, but here there was no wisteria to aid their descent, and horror gripped them too.
When it was time to go home, she called for a minute’s silence to pray for America and the suffering of its people, thanking God for the courage of the emergency services and hoping as many people as possible had escaped to safety.
Next day at assembly she gave everyone an update on the tragedy and who was responsible, and when fights broke out between the Muslim children and the Hindus and the Christians, she tried to impress on them that ordinary people weren’t to blame. She asked the senior classes to write poems about the tragedy. Paris’s was marvellous.
As the days passed, a huge mutual interest developed as the children learnt about the courage of the firemen and the brave search-and-rescue dogs. Some of the children said their parents thought Bin Laden was a hero, and more frightful fights ensued.
Cara and Mike Pitts, however, were constantly on the telephone, stirring up trouble. When it was crucial to raise Larks’s position in the league tables, why was Janna wasting the entire school’s afternoon watching television?
‘It’s called global citizenship,’ protested Janna when Ashton Douglas carpeted her.
‘Wod Hyde will be with you tomorrow,’ said Ashton nastily. ‘He’ll sort you out.’
12
Janna had always felt that one of the cruellest humiliations was when heads of very successful establishments known as ‘beacon schools’ were posted in to sort out failing schools, ‘yanking them up by the hair’ as the Education Secretary so charmingly put it.
Janna’s russet curls were well and truly yanked by the smug and self-regarding Rod Hyde who, as head of St Jimmy’s, had been forced to redesign his writing paper to accommodate all the awards and accolades his school had received.
Arriving at Larks, Rod immediately showed how well he got on with Janna’s staff, joshing Mike Pitts, Skunk Illingworth and Robbie Rushton, kissing Cara on both hollowed cheeks and warmly quizzing Sam Spink about her week at the TUC conference.
‘I’m sure you found it very empowering. You must debrief me over a few jars.’
Janna ground her teeth.
Known as Jesus Christ Superhead, Rod showed off his spare figure and muscular freckled arms by wearing short-sleeved shirts tucked into belted trousers. On colder days, he wore a rust-coloured cardigan to match his ginger beard.
A control freak, Rod received an emotional charge from acting as a ‘critical friend’, rolling up at Larks, telling Janna what was wrong with her and her school, attacking both her management skills and her teaching.
Janna, on the rare occasions she had time to teach, delivered the national curriculum as if it had been freed from its chains. When, on Rod’s first day, Lydia rang in sick at the prospect of teaching Macbeth to Year Nine E, Janna took over, refusing to be fazed when Rod parked himself at the back, busily making notes on his clipboard.
It happened to be the day when Rocky, the huge curly-haired autistic boy kept comparatively calm by Ri
talin, was in one of his more eccentric moods. Wandering in, he took one look at Rod and shut himself in the store cupboard at the back of the classroom.
‘The Macbeths were a glamorous career couple,’ Janna was saying, ‘like Tony and Cherie Blair or Bill and Hillary Clinton. We tend to think of them as middle-aged and childless, but probably they were young, young enough to have kids who might inherit the throne, which may have been why Macbeth told Lady Macbeth to “bring forth men children only”.’
The class then had a spirited discussion on the right age to have children. Kylie Rose said ‘twelve’. They then moved on to Macduff being ripped untimely from his mother’s womb.
‘That’s a cop-out, miss,’ volunteered Paris.
‘I think Shakespeare meant that Macduff’s mum had a Caesarean,’ explained Janna, ‘but you’re right, Paris, it is a cop-out.’
How difficult not to be touched when she saw his pale face flood with colour.
‘You must also remember Macbeth was a mighty warrior, a fantastic killing machine.’
‘Like Russell Crowe in Gladiator,’ said Pearl.
‘Or Arnie in Terminator,’ said a sepulchral voice from the cupboard.
The class giggled.
‘Exactly, Rocky,’ called out Janna. ‘Macbeth was on a fantastic high having routed the terrorists who were trying to overthrow Duncan, the King of Scotland, who was also his wife’s cousin. Mighty Macbeth had been on a killing spree that was hugely applauded. Like scoring a hat trick for Arsenal or Liverpool. The world was at his feet.
‘Now tell me, what did Macbeth have in common with Stalin, Hitler and Saddam Hussein?’
‘They all had moustaches,’ shouted Pearl.
‘Like Baldie Hyde,’ called out the sepulchral voice from the cupboard.
More giggling as the class stared round at Rod.
‘They all deteriorated into tyrants and mass murderers,’ said Janna quickly. ‘Now, for homework, you’ve got two choices, one of which may appeal more to the girls, particularly you, Pearl. If you were a costume designer and in charge of make-up, how would you kit out the Weird Sisters?’
‘I’d put them in baggy, raggy, gypsy-style costumes,’ said Pearl, ‘wiv red and purple hair, blackened-out teeth and cruel scarlet mouths.’
‘Like Cara Sharpe,’ intoned Rocky from his hideout.
‘That’s enough,’ said Janna firmly. ‘The other choice is to imagine you’re a war correspondent like John Simpson or Kate Adie, and write a script telling the viewers at home about Macbeth’s first victory, bringing in the routing of the rebels, the Norwegian support and the butchering of the treacherous Thane of Cawdor, ripping him open or unseaming him “from the navel to the chaps”. If you’ve got time, you could list questions for an interview with Macbeth or Banquo and add Macbeth’s possible answers.’
Year Nine E were gratifyingly enraptured and groaned when the bell went. Throughout the lesson, however, Janna had kept seeing Rod Hyde’s tongue, green as a wild garlic leaf, as he pointedly yawned. Afterwards he couldn’t wait to tick her off.
‘You’re far too familiar, and if you digress all the time, you’ll never get them through their exams.’
‘They’re not taking GCSEs for nearly three years. I want them to enjoy Shakespeare.’
‘And you talk too much,’ Rod consulted his clipboard, as they walked back to her office. ‘Try to be a listening head rather than a talking one. Don’t take this personally,’ he added when Janna looked mutinous, ‘it’s for your own good.
‘And you must stop blowing your top. I know we redheads are volatile’ – he crinkled his small eyes – ‘but you lose dignity every time you raise your voice to students and colleagues. Ashton tells me you displayed unedifying aggression at the governors’ meeting. Has it occurred to you that you’re the reason so many of your staff are off with stress?’
Janna dug her nails into her palms and counted to ten. Next moment, she and Rod were sent flying by a yelling gang from Year Ten, stampeding like buffaloes towards the playground.
‘Don’t run,’ howled Janna.
‘Don’t run,’ said Rod quietly.
Infuriatingly the gang mumbled, ‘Sorry, sir,’ and shambled off.
‘You must instil discipline here.’ Rod shut her office door behind them. ‘Coloured hair, beaded necklaces, particularly for boys, rings in the navel or the tongue, and shaved heads must all go.’
Ten days ago, Janna would have agreed with him, but he was irritating her so much, she said she liked children expressing themselves.
‘And you should cut down that wisteria, which seems the accepted escape route for most of your hooligans.’
‘That wisteria’s older than me or even you, and much more beautiful.’
‘Dear Janna’ – Rod pursed his red lips – ‘you’re not helping yourself. Caring Cara Sharpe also tells me’ – he turned back to his clipboard – ‘you’ve been working here until eleven at night. Terribly unfair to Wally, who has to lock up after you. He does have a life.’
‘Wally’s never complained,’ stammered Janna.
‘He’s too nice,’ said Rod pompously. ‘Start thinking of other people. You wouldn’t have to work so late if you organized your day better. Now stop sulking and turn on that coffee machine.’
Somehow, Janna managed not to rip him from navel to chaps with her paper knife, but she cried herself to sleep that night. Were the children and staff really acting up and demoralized because she was such a bitch?
For his next visit, Rod called a breakfast meeting at 8.00 a.m.
‘You provide the croissants. I’ll provide the pearls of wisdom.’
He’d been jogging and dripped with sweat when he arrived. Janna had to watch him getting butter, marmalade and crumbs all over his red beard as he poured scorn on Larks’s place in the league tables.
‘It’d help if you and Searston Abbey didn’t cream off all the best pupils,’ snarled Janna. ‘Think how disadvantaged our kids are. Most of them have no quiet room at home to do their homework and no one able to help them. Unemployment’s at an all-time high on the Shakespeare Estate, so the kids, as well as helping out with the shopping, have to take evening and weekend jobs to make ends meet. Poor little Graffi fell asleep at his desk this morning.’
‘Probably been doing drugs all night,’ said Rod dismissively. ‘You must get your parents on side. Ours were in school all weekend, installing benches in the playground – that’s one reason our results are spectacular. We’ll be catching up with Bagley Hall in a year or two and then Hengist B-T will have to look to his laurels. No parent will want to fork out twenty-odd thousand a year only to get thrashed by a maintained school.’
‘What’s Hengist like?’ Janna was annoyed to find herself asking.
‘Terminally frivolous and arrogant,’ snapped Rod. ‘Typical public-school Hooray Henry, far too big for his green wellies.’
As Janna bent down to retrieve a pen, Rod suppressed an urge to pull down her panties and smack her freckled bottom. Sheila, his ‘superb wife’ of twenty-seven years, an ex-nurse, who called him ‘head teacher’ in bed, didn’t excite him quite enough. One day Janna Curtis would express gratitude for the way he’d imposed discipline on her and her school.
‘I shall be spending one to one and a half days a week with you from now on,’ he announced.
‘How d’you find the time?’ asked Janna sulkily.
‘I delegate. Ask a busy person.’
On the following day, Rod rolled up in a big black hat, which he left in Janna’s office. Later in the morning, passing Year Nine E’s history lesson, he found Paris wearing it and doing a dazzling imitation of Rod addressing the troops:
‘“As part of our caring and supportive ethos . . .”’
Rod was outraged and snatched back his hat.
‘Others make allowances for you, Paris Alvaston, because of your unfortunate circumstances, and you abuse it,’ he shouted. ‘I shall speak with Mr Blenchley.’
‘Mr Blenchl
ey’ll make Paris’s life hell,’ protested Janna.
The Wolf Pack, who also thought Rod’s remarks were below the belt, started pelting him with textbooks and pencil boxes and banging their desk lids when he tried to shut them up.
Nor was Rod’s impression of Larks improved later in the day, when Graffi caught him whispering to Cara Sharpe just inside the huge stationery cupboard and locked them both in.
Only after an hour did Rowan hear banging and let them out.
Rod had gone maroon with fury. ‘How dare you?’ he bellowed at Graffi, who was now wearing the hat.
‘You and Mrs Sharpe was saying horrible things about Miss,’ said Graffi and, jumping out of the window, slithered down the wisteria and ran laughing down the drive.
‘This school deserves to be closed down,’ exploded Rod.
Janna, meanwhile, was working on her Larks Ascending project for her prospective-parents’ evening.
‘We need to put everything about larks, how high up they sing, how they nest on the ground, how because of modern farming, they’re getting fewer and fewer.’
‘Like Larks’s pupils,’ said Feral.
Janna and Paris raided the dictionary of quotations for poems about larks. Cambola searched for music. Graffi did a wonderful drawing of Rod Hyde as Edward Lear’s Old Man with bird droppings on his head and with owls, larks, hens and wrens nesting in his beard. Graffi also helped Janna cover the corridor walls with pictures by the children and torn-out paintings by Old Masters. They tried not to laugh when Mike Pitts wandered in after a lunchtime session at the Ghost and Castle and remarked:
‘That Modigliani’s not a bad painter. What class is he in?’
Janna knew she ought to sack Mike for drinking, but who would back her up? She ought to sack him for perfidy too. When she came back unexpectedly from a meeting, she found him whispering into her telephone. Seeing her, he flushed even redder and hung up.
Janna had immediately pressed redial, and an answering voice had said, ‘Ashton Douglas.’
Janna was so thrown, she revealed who she was and instantly received a bollocking for her treatment of Rod Hyde.