by Freya North
‘I have the class next to yours,’ he reassured her, ‘so if you need me, just holler.’
‘Righty ho,’ said Polly, though she’d never used the phrase before.
‘You know how to holler, don’t you?’ growled Jackson with a wink.
FOUR
It seems wise, at this point, to introduce Megan Reilly because no doubt we’ll bear witness to much of Polly’s experience through their correspondence by letter and phone. Megan, a fellow teacher at BGS, is Polly’s closest friend. She is two years older than Polly but they started at BGS on the same day, five years ago. Megan teaches Maths. With an ‘s’. She is taller and more substantial than Polly, but that’s not hard. Though her distant Irish roots have left no trace of an accent, Megan has the dark, twirling tresses and lough-blue eyes of her Reilly ancestors. She has a slick, biting sense of humour, and the tortoiseshell spectacles she wears serve to magnify the wicked glint to her eye. She’s effortlessly glamorous without a scrape of make-up, her hair sometimes swirled on top of her head, sometimes cascading down her back and, while she merely nods at current trends, she always looks enviably stylish and expensive – in school as much as out.
‘You have this intuitive flair for layering,’ Louise Bray, head of History and a slave to fashion, told her begrudgingly as she fingered Megan’s soft, burgundy cardigan over a peach silk waistcoat worn on top of a cream linen shirt; a white cotton T-shirt just visible beneath it all and a scarf with all the above colours draped about her shoulders.
‘Regulation school colours,’ Megan explained with a shrug.
A flair for layers – bum! I just threw on whatever was clean and to hand.
Megan lives in a maisonette on the good side of Kilburn and she only ever walks to school. It is, in fact, more of a march; she covers the side streets of West Hampstead in under ten minutes, invariably jay-walks the Finchley Road at Swiss Cottage and is at school, unswervingly, at 8.15 a.m. She is always home in time for Neighbours (an obsession about which she feels neither guilt nor embarrassment), apart from Wednesdays when she plays violin in the school orchestra.
It is 8.15 a.m. Megan makes coffee in the staff room. The other teachers mill around, some in conversation, some analysing their registers, others gazing down at the netball-court-cum-playground-cum-arboretum, deciding on today’s tactics to keep their girls in order. To Megan, however, the staff room may as well have been empty. Polly’s absence was all the more stark to her because none of the other teachers appeared to notice it. Despite her universal popularity, Megan felt utterly alone without Polly and she felt her exuberance being sapped. Megan was not used to not having Polly there. Not after five years in which they’d snatched whatever spare time the school day bestowed on them to natter and laugh and share their space together. Their conversations could span school scandals, the beef crisis, cinema and Marks & Spencer ready-meals, in great detail and all in an easy five minutes. Five minutes were ample. In retrospect, they had been so precious too and the bond between the women was strong. Invariably, the topic turned, at some point and on a daily basis, to the Fyfield brothers; usually over lunch-time or an evening’s telephone call, when they could confer more leisurely. After all, Megan has borne witness to Polly’s relationship with Max from the start. She adores Max. And she has also had her eye on Dominic for some time.
It is 8.20 a.m. Megan Reilly has been charged with showing Jen Carter around school and she awaits her arrival with some suspicion. Polly’s replacement? She can’t take Polly’s place. There is no substitute. She is irreplaceable. And yet This Carter Woman has taken Polly’s place in more ways than one because of course she’s now ensconced at Polly’s place – her flat – too. Megan had phoned the previous evening to welcome Jennifer Carter but was so perturbed to discover Polly’s answering machine already boasting a new message in a transatlantic twang that she hung up and phoned Max in disgust (and dismay – having prayed hard for Dominic to answer the call).
‘That Carter Woman’s been tampering with Polly’s phone!’ she launched.
‘Hullo Megan,’ said Max, ‘how are you? Polly did leave a little yellow Post-it on the answerphone with instructions. And her permission.’
Megan chewed her thumb and decided she’d overlook the situation. But log it, all the same. ‘Has Polly phoned yet?’ she asked, ‘has she arrived, do you know?’
‘She has arrived, Meg,’ said Max pseudo-breezily, ‘I phoned the airline to check. But no, I haven’t heard from her and I don’t really expect to tonight. Long journey and everything. Hopefully tomorrow. You haven’t heard a peep, have you?’
‘No, sadly, no.’
‘You will.’
‘Will what?’
‘Hear from Polly, of course.’
‘Oh yes. I’m not used not to speaking to her daily, on the blower.’
‘She’ll have lots to tell you. She already has.’
‘Has what?’
‘Lots to tell you.’
‘Oh, undoubtedly.’
Both sighed.
‘Max, do you feel, you know – easy – about This Carter Woman living in Polly’s place? Cuddling Buster? Using the bubble bath? Fiddling about?’
‘Well,’ paused Max, ‘Polly gave her blessing. And gave me “site management responsibilities” as it were, so I’ll keep my eye on things. The Carter Woman has my number. And I have a set of keys.’
This appeased Megan.
‘How’s Dominic then? He OK?’
‘Yes,’ said Max, throwing a suggestive wink over to his brother, ‘he’s fine. Megan, we really oughtn’t to call her The Carter Woman, not before we’ve even met her. She might be perfectly OK. She’s probably very nice.’
‘But she sure ain’t Polly!’ Megan declared in pure New York.
Max fell silent.
‘Better go, Meg. Better keep the line free, just in case.’
8.30 a.m. Mrs Elms, headmistress of stereotypical St Trinian’s proportions, marched into the staff room.
‘Good morning, everybody,’ she cried, her iron-coloured curls and dark burgundy lipstick fixed until home time. ‘Here she is – locum tenens for Polly Fenton – Miss Jennifer Carter!’ and she applauded extravagantly, nudging the stranger into centre stage.
‘Actually,’ the girl replied, shoulders square, ‘it’s Jen and it’s Ms.’
‘Nonsense!’ cajoled Mrs Elms to Jen’s unhidden horror. ‘At BGS, if we’re not Mrs we’re Miss. Unless we’re Mr, of course. Isn’t that right, Bill?’ she declared to the art teacher who nodded in a vague sort of way, as befitting his calling.
‘Mr Hardy!’ Mrs Elms proclaimed proudly, outstretching her hand to the man and thrusting Jen’s into it. ‘Mr Bill Hardy,’ Mrs Elms continued, ‘this is Miss Carter. Jen,’ she enunciated, ‘is that right, dear?’
‘Uh huh,’ said Jen, who looked tired and, Megan discerned with a tiny touch of sympathy, tearful.
Mrs Elms went through the entire staff body in the same manner, grabbing hands and thrusting Jen’s into them. She came to Megan.
‘And this, Miss Carter, this is Miss Megan Reilly. Hands, ladies. Super. There are no hands safer than Miss Reilly’s, my dear. She’ll deliver you to your class and show you the ropes. And the stairs and the corridors, ha!’
With that, Mrs Elms turned on her squat-heeled shoes and left on the double to prepare herself for assembly.
‘She’s not even fifty,’ Megan whispered to Jen, ‘isn’t that frightening?’
‘Sure is. Do I really have to be a Miss?’
‘Well,’ said Megan, thrusting an unrequested coffee into Jen’s hands, ‘that all depends on your pronunciation now, doesn’t it!’ She winked at Jen.
‘Is this decaff?’
‘Dat is right,’ joked Megan, masking sudden irritation with a daft foreign accent, ‘dis is de caff and dat is de tea!’
‘Good morning, ladies and gentlemen, I am Polly Fenton and I’ll be teaching English this year.’
Who? Us! Ladies and gentlemen – u
s? Cool!
Ten hands shot into the air and fresh, eager faces implored her to choose me, choose me.
This can’t really be unadulterated enthusiasm, genuine politeness, can it? Surely it must be the start of some horrible jest?
You’re at Hubbardtons now, Polly, you can shake off the wariness that the BGS girls have instilled in you.
The hands still soared heavenward.
‘Er, yes?’ said Polly, marvelling that the room was carpeted. ‘Gentleman with the baseball cap?’
‘Mrs, Miss or Ms, ma’am?’
His face was earnest. After all, he wasn’t sure he’d even met a gentleman before, let alone been referred to as one.
‘Miss,’ confirmed Polly with a relieved smile; he was clearly enthusiastic and polite and not the practical joker type.
A class of ten? Do you know, that’s less than the weekly detention crowd at BGS!
Polly looked about her, nine pairs of hands lay neatly on the tables in front of them. A tenth pair were hidden but heard, tapping away at a lap-top. Polly cleared her throat.
‘You there? With the computer?’
‘Yes, Ma’am?’
‘Miss,’ said Polly. ‘What are you doing?’
‘I’m just logging “Miss Polly Fenton” into my file, Ma’am.’
‘Miss,’ said Polly.
‘Miss,’ said the girl, closing the lid of the machine and giving Polly her undivided attention, prefixed by a shy smile and then a beaming, glinting grin displaying a mouth with more metal than enamel.
‘Okey dokey,’ said Polly, surprised at her choice of phrase, ‘you now know me, but who on earth are you? Plural!’
The students delivered their names.
Oh that they could wear name badges too! How ever am I to distinguish between AJ and TC? Lauren and Laurel? And two Bens, would you believe, not to mention a Heidi, a Forrest and the two others whose names I’ve completely forgotten?
‘Super!’ Polly declared instead. ‘And could you let me know which of you are the semaphores?’
The class laughed politely and AJ, who turned out to be the boy wearing the baseball cap, corrected her kindly and informed her that he was a sophomore and sixteen years of age, and that TC, Forrest, Lauren and Ed (ah, that was it, Ed!) were as well. Laurel, the girl with the lap-top, explained that she was a freshman and had just turned fifteen. Polly deduced that the remaining freshmen were both Bens, Heidi and the boy with no name, who was rather overweight but wore the sweetest smile Polly had ever seen in a fifteen-year-old.
‘Splendid,’ said Polly and, as she did so, she observed ten pairs of eyes glaze slightly while the smiles stretched at her vocabulary. ‘Let’s crack on. What’s so funny? Lauren?’
‘It’s just, like, your accent’s so neat, I guess we’re gonna have a bunch of fun learning English from an English lady.’
It was the first time Polly had ever been referred to as a lady so she chose to go easy on Lauren’s command of the English language.
‘Thank you, Lauren, but I’d rather you spoke of a bunch of flowers tied with a neat ribbon – and perhaps an accent that is, for example, jolly nice, and English lessons which, I assure you, are to be tremendous fun.’
The class gave her a swift round of applause; Polly bowed graciously, somewhat mystified by her unpremeditated plumminess and her employment of the forbidden adjective, nice.
‘Now,’ she said, rummaging in her large bag, ‘now, have I a treat for you. Where the Dickens—? Ah, here we are. Pumblechook!’ she declared suddenly, fixing a wild smile on Heidi and making her jump. Silence rapt the students. Polly left her table, on which she had been perched, and walked slowly around the semicircle of desks in front of her, distributing books. ‘Snodgrass!’ she whispered to TC; ‘Sergeant Buzfuz!’ she declared to Forrest. She walked behind Ben (with the blond hair, must remember) and cried ‘Pecksniff!’ above his head as she clasped his shoulders. The class were captivated, Lauren looked positively frightened as Miss Fenton approached her, held on to her eyes and uttered ‘Uriah Heap!’ in sombre tones. Miss Fenton placed both hands on Ed’s desk and growled ‘Chuzzlewit!’, before going to AJ, removing his baseball cap and replacing it, backwards, while she cried ‘Mr Tappertit!’ The second Ben (curly hair, snub nose; curly hair, snub nose) she greeted with ‘Bumble!’ before singing ‘Mrs Fezziwig!’ to Laurel. Just the nameless boy. Polly stood in front of him and tipped her head, ‘Dick Swiveller,’ she declared, after some thought.
‘No, Miss Fenton,’ he said, slowly and ingenuously, ‘I’m Dick Southwood Junior.’
Thank goodness for that.
‘Miss?’
‘Yes, AJ?’
‘Who are these guys?’
‘Dickens!’ brandished Polly, ‘Charles Dickens Esquire. Born the 7th of February 1812, died on June the 9th, 1870. With names as imaginative, as delicious to the tongue, as Snodgrass and Pumblechook, can you imagine how colourful and fantastic the characters are themselves? Do not such names bode well for marvellous stories?’
Somebody whistled in slow appreciation.
‘Miss Fenton?’
‘Yes Laurel Lap-top?’
‘Was that 1812?’
‘Yes, and you don’t have to commit it to the silicon memory of that machine. Switch it off, if you please, and tune in to this: David Copperfield.’
With copies distributed to each member of the class, Polly said ‘Chapter One’ while her eyes sparkled olive at the students. They read in silence until the end of class.
‘Ladies! Lay-deez! Upper Four – attention this instant! Lucy Howard, back to your place. On your chair, young lady – do not soil that desk with your derrière. Quiet. Angela, excuse me, Angela! How do you fancy detention tomorrow? You don’t? Well then, shut it! Thank you. How gracious you all are. This is Miss Carter, who’s taking Miss Fenton’s place for a year. She’ll be your form teacher as well as English teacher to some of you. Alison Setton, bring me that paper aeroplane. Now!’
‘Miss Reilly thinks she’s so cool when really she’s naff.’
‘I am cool, Alison, you just can’t handle it – detention tomorrow – you can sew position tags on to the new netball vests. This, as I said, is Miss Carter. You are all to be cordial, friendly and SILENT.’
Megan Reilly fixed the class with an uncompromising stare, patted Jen on the shoulder and whispered to her that she was hoarse already, bless the blighters.
‘A word of advice,’ she disclosed in quiet warning, ‘don’t smile until half term.’
She patted the new teacher again and left the room, remonstrating to Jesus, Mary and Joseph when she heard the decibel level soar just as soon as she’d closed the door.
Jen Carter stood behind her desk and in front of a blackboard. She’d never used a blackboard before. At Hubbardtons they had expanses of wipe-away white. And odourless, non-toxic coloured markers.
She’d never heard such a racket.
She’d never taught a class with more than twelve students to it.
She’d never taught only girls.
She’d never met blighters.
How in hell’s name was she going to gain their respect, how ever was she even going to get their attention?
Don’t smile.
How long was it till half term?
She turned to the blackboard and began to write her name in long, sloping letters. The din continued, subsiding only temporarily when the chalk grated at a particular point on the board. It was like the volume being switched off. And then switched on, twice as loud, immediately after. She turned back to the class.
‘Quiet, please.’
Did she say something?
Dunno. Couldn’t hear it if she did.
Bet those teeth are capped.
Yeah. And those boobs are definitely plastic.
‘Ladies,’ she tried, ‘quiet?’
Ha! We’ve got her, she’s cracking.
Come on, let’s all hum.
Yeah! And sway slightly.
‘Per
-lease!’
Jen turned back to the blackboard and stared at her name. Amazingly, the volume was cranked up a further two notches. Brainwave. She took a deep breath and then dragged her fingernails across the blackboard (capped teeth were impermeable to the screech) before spinning on her heels. The class, still soothing their jaws with their hands, were silent; momentarily at least. Fixing her eyes on the clock at the back of the classroom, Jen spoke from the pit of her stomach in deep, curdling tones.
‘Shut. The fuck. Up.’
8.40 a.m.
Respect!
‘Don’t you ever, EVER make me swear again,’ she told thirty pairs of awestruck eyes.
FIVE
‘Kate, please may I use the phone?’ asked Polly.
‘Sure,’ said Kate and, disconcerted by Polly’s sludge-green eyes, she placed a wand of raw spaghetti between the pages of her book and discreetly left the kitchen as if she had been just about to anyway.
‘Hullo?’
‘Dom?’
‘Hullo, Pollygirl – how are you? How’s it going? What am I saying! Hold on. Max? Max! Quick! I’ll pass you over. You take care, Miss Fenton – them yankies can be wankies. Max? Max! He’s in the frigging bath, Polly. Would you believe it? Call back in five mins, yes?’
‘’Kay.’
‘Hullo?’
‘Meg?’
‘Po-lly!’
The women shrieked at each other nonsensically down the phone for a moment.
‘Max is in the bath.’
‘So I’m your second choice – charming!’
‘Dear Miss Reilly,’ soothed Polly, knowing Megan meant no mischief, ‘I’ve just finished my first full day. It’s the first chance I’ve had to use the phone. I can’t be too long – just give Max enough time to dry.’
‘How are you, girl? What’s it like?’ asked Megan while she located Polly on the school photograph and stroked her with her little finger. ‘Is it incredible? Have you met Tom Cruise yet?’
‘Yes,’ said Polly, ‘and no.’
‘Anyone who looks remotely like him? Brad Pitt, at a scrape?’
‘No,’ said Polly, ‘and no. Or not that I’ve met so far, I’m afraid. There might be, but I’m jet lagged beyond belief. Do you know, this place, Meg, is so, so beautiful. There’s so much space for the children – in class and out. Guess how many I have in a class?’