‘Can we have a practice, please, Miss Stevens?’
‘Practise?’
‘For the match at dinner-time against 2b. We’ve picked the teams.’
‘You’re presenting me with a fait accompli if you know what that means.’
‘It means something accomplished doesn’t it? You know when you do something and tell someone afterwards so that they have to accept it.’
‘That’s it. Have you got two umpires? Anyone got another whistle. Good. Get started then.’
Gives me a chance to think. The ‘A’ forms are so much easier. Don’t begin with a chip on their shoulders or struggling against work that’s too difficult for them. All wrong really. Just doing things on the cheap. Any other way you’d have to have more teachers and equipment and who’s going to pay for them? No one wants to pay for education now. Still see it as a social service instead of a fundamental need. A profession for women: childminders. That’s why it’s so badly paid. Wonder how much the Samuels gets. A couple of thou. if she’s lucky for a school this size, and scientists and doctors run away to the colonies every week because they’re only getting twice that. Yet this is where it all begins. They never get another chance to learn.
I was lucky there. At least dad saw we were educated. Funny we should both turn out like this. Must give Tommy a ring. Find out how the latest is getting on. Just as well he died when he did. Wouldn’t have been so easy to keep in the dark as mother. She doesn’t want to know anyway. Wonder if he was; a bit at least. Tripping round in his little lace cotta with all those handsome young servers. Would make you think it ran in the family. They’re having trouble with that ball in this wind. Looks as though we might be in for some rain too.
‘Come on. You’ll have to do better than this to beat 2b.’
What was I like at this age, getting on for thirteen? Some of them started their periods already. Younger these days; better fed. The pattern was there already, ground in, every line etched deep if I’d only known. Dad asking me if I felt I was ready to consider being confirmed. Sun falling through the study window like the Samuels’ room this morning. ‘I’m sorry but I don’t think I believe enough.’ Meaning how could I believe in a father figure, all-seeing, all-wise, just and powerful when you were none of these things? When I’d seen you cry and humble yourself to little men on the P.C.C. and fat fools like the bishop. Your grace my lord to speak a space, compose my face and keep my place. A-a-amen. And the carpets shrank down the stairs, worn through with our feet dragging up to bed until there were bare boards above the first floor and the whole house rambled and sagged at the seams like a down-and-out doused with Red Biddy, the wine of anti-communion. But your cope was of the best and your hands soft and delicately joined over the cup of our bitterness, mine and Tommy’s. Dilapidations.
Only the garden was good for growing in, running and climbing and a world of fantasy in the shrubbery; clinging to the top of the tree in a wind like this, asail topmast high; hunting between the dusty acrid laurels knowing if I bit one leaf I’d die; hiding in the undergrowth while mother called and commanded to choir practice. Tommy missed out on a lot of that, packed off to boarding school. Making a man of him they called it. And now we’re neither of us anything. What was that old pop song? ‘I’m just an in-between.’ Maybe we’re in love with each other. Two halves of the same apple. Happens between twins sometimes. I took his strength and he took my softness like the worms making love.
Strange today, can’t get into it. Mind keeps running off down different tracks. This wind doesn’t help; threat of rain and then the sun coming through in jagged patches. Tired perhaps. The long hard haul of the Spring term. Uphill all the way, yes all the way. Some Spring through Jan. and Feb. Easter soon. The last heaviness of Good Friday and then the resurrection of the year with the yellow splashes of daffodils on the altar and the church bowered for the young god, ‘Happy Easter darlings’ from mother, and dad’s egg hunt through the house. How long is it to go now? Another three weeks. Reckon I’ll just about make it.
‘How’s the score, Linda?’
‘Six-four Miss Stevens.’
‘Did you change ends at half time?’
‘Yes, we were two minutes late, though.’
‘Well we won’t tell them; it might cause an argument.’ Funny self-contained child; completely reliable and they know it too. Three times form-captain and not a bit unpopular because it doesn’t affect her and they know she looks after them and keeps them out of trouble. Supposed to be pretty bright too. Don’t see enough of that in this subject. Perhaps I should have done something else. Pig-headedness just because he wanted me to carry on with history and I saw it as another form of weakness, lost in the mists, romantic retreat to the past. Mother would have preferred it too. ‘And what’s your pretty daughter?’ ‘A games hag; lean, stringy and muscular.’ No more pretty dresses, the frills and frillies I wanted myself; the dancing till dawn in the arms of a Valentino who doesn’t love the Virgin Mary and the chief server better.
‘Miss Stevens, do you think it’ll rain?’
‘I shouldn’t be surprised. It looks rather like it.’
‘What shall we do about the match then?’
‘You’ll have to put up a notice on the boards cancelling it or rather postponing it. Will you do that?’ Pray for rain. It’ll give me a long dinner hour to spend with my little French frou-frou. Must find out her name. Wonder how old she is. About twenty-two I should think. Wonder how much she knows. Still the French are different about things like that. Oh mademoiselle you’ll go to hell if you like me too well. Seducing the innocent that’s what you’re contemplating Stevens. People like you should be locked up before you contaminate society. I am society. You’re sick. So is society.
‘Another five minutes and then it’ll be time. I’m going round to the other court to blow the whistle there. Make sure they stop on time won’t you? Here come the first spots. We’ll just about get the game finished before it pours. A pity about the match. You’ll have to arrange another day with 2b.’
The devil still does a good job of looking after his own I see. Leaves me with my own form though and we can’t use the gym because Mary’s got that with 4b. Hall’s out. Millie uses it all day today. Have to find a free room to have them in. Think ours has a wireless period for the sixth.
‘Hurry through the cloakroom won’t you 2a? Linda, I leave them to your tender charge. I would be disappointed to hear anything’d gone wrong.’ Must get to 3a before they go rushing off to the gym.
‘Ah here you are. Have you got your satchels with you? Right make a quiet line outside the hall. Thelma go and find an empty room. Now I want absolute quiet here. Don’t draw attention to yourselves while I go and get some work to do too. Mavis that isn’t a very good beginning.’
Give me a chance to go over next term’s timetable and sort through some record cards. Deal with any form business too that’s come up. Keep them on their toes. ‘Have you found somewhere Thelma? Right lead on then. No fussing over where you’re going to sit. It really doesn’t matter for one prep, period. Life will go on Elizabeth if you don’t sit next to Mary for what must be quite forty minutes. Yes Joan? No inkwell. Then move to this front desk. Jacqueline come to the front too. I see you’ve got yourself nicely tucked in the back row for a gossip with Carole as soon as I look the other way. No I know you wouldn’t dream of it but come to the front all the same. Is there any girl who feels she hasn’t enough to do because if so I can provide her with an essay on either the value of physical education or on games through the ages. No offers. Then I expect you all to settle down and get on with it. I have plenty of work to do and I take it that you have too.’
Some hideous smells coming up from the kitchen, specially designed to put you off your dinner before you even sit down to it. Maybe I can get next to the little French piece. ‘And what do you think of English cooking? Oh you mustn’t judge by this. Let me take you …’ Walk into my parlour said the spider to the fly. Funny how
we always think of spiders as feminine and yet the horror, what do they call it, arachniphobia, is somehow associated with fear of penetration. The spider penetrating its prey and immobilising it with a shot so that it has live meat to feed off equates with pregnancy fears. Bound hand and foot in a situation you can’t escape. No, no, not me. Caught by a trick of the body, betrayed again just like you were when you first stood in front of all those closed doors marked men only. ‘But why dad, why can’t I be a priest?’ ‘The priesthood is only for men. Women have another vocation.’ ‘But I don’t feel any call to that. I want the real thing. What good would it be if I couldn’t administer the sacraments or say mass? There isn’t any point in it otherwise. I don’t want to go around washing old ladies. I’m not cut out for that. Oh I know what you’re going to say: that it’s not a true vocation, just pride. If I was really called I’d accept anything that offered itself, not want the exhibitionist glories of preaching and advising people on their spiritual and moral problems, god for the week. But would you? Did you? I’m no different from you.’ Poor dad. And now he’s justified of course. Quite fallen away; never set foot inside. Tommy too only I don’t think he even gives it a thought. As Jill says you can’t go back and that would be trying to cling to the roots, refusing to grow up away towards the insecurity of an independent life. Get a great hankering though sometimes, kid myself, specially when Easter comes round; I will go unto the altar of God, my feet shall stand in thy way O-o-oh Jerusalem.
Look at them all bent over their work; adults already by this stage, thinking and feeling like adults. Puberty seems to be a definite dividing line between the child and the adult. They’re never the same again. Nearly Juliet’s age, moving into the real world out of childhood fantasy and dreaming of lovers. Funny how some kids never have crushes but just go straight on to boys while others like Rosemary go through years of agony. Some have both at once of course and some of us never come out. The faces of love. Too simple to put it all down to arrested development. Time to do the rounds.
How I hated it as a kid, someone standing behind me looking over my shoulder. Most of them seem to be doing maths. Had a lot of trouble with the Knight. Saying they were noisy and undisciplined. She wanted them herself that’s why. Always tries to pinch an a form; likes having earnest moral chats with them. Auntie Knight’s corner. Trouble is they’re older than she is already, more experienced too most of them. She hasn’t even lived vicariously. Never reads a book except How God Loves or The Calculus. Must be well into her thirties but with that strange unmarked face like a rather doughy fourteen-year-old, white skin and too fair hair, no eyebrows almost like a mongol. Yet she’s got a degree so there must be an intelligence there somewhere. Kids don’t get on with her. Instinctive reaction to anything abnormal, incomplete like animals. They’d say I was that of course. The children don’t sense it though or the old girl couldn’t accuse me of being so popular. ‘I can always tell them, spot them straightaway.’
‘And what precisely are you doing Rosemary?’
‘Reading, Miss Stevens.’
‘Is that your English homework?’
‘No Miss Stevens.’
‘Then you’re reading for pleasure? And what is this splendid piece of pornography in its brown paper disguise. I see. And where did this come from?’
‘The library.’
‘The public library? Does your mother know you’ve got this?’
‘Oh yes. She got it for me.’
‘And how many other people are on the short list to borrow it before it goes back? No volunteers? All of you I expect. I hope your mother’s got plenty put by to pay the fines while the whole of 3a plough their way through putting their fingers under every word. However since as far as I know it isn’t on the English syllabus or in the school library I don’t want to see it in school again or I shall confiscate it. If you’re all eager to read it I suggest you get your mothers as well trained as Mrs. Ellis. Now put it away and get out something else to do.’
‘Have you read it Miss Stevens?’
‘Yes.’
‘Did you like it?’
‘Yes. I think it’s very well written.’
‘Then why can’t we read it in school?’
‘Because there are some parents who don’t see it in this way and I have no intention of losing my job because you want to satisfy your curiosity.’
‘But do you think we ought to read it?’
‘When you’re ready for it.’
‘I thought it was boring.’
‘There we are. Sylvia thought it was boring because she read it too soon. You might suggest to Mrs. Parry that you have a debate on censorship in English sometime and you can let me know what conclusions you come to. Now get on with your work all of you. I want you to stop in about ten minutes and we’ll have the rest of the period to discuss form business.’
That was a tricky one but I think that was the right thing to do. One of the other staff might have come across one of them reading it and not understood and then there would have been hell to pay. Imagine the Knight’s face! Filthy books. My soul is as pure as the driven calculus. One and one must never be allowed to make three. And he added unto them; increase and multiply. No, no. Divide and subtract. Sex is the lowest common factor. Keep my hands free from picking and stealing and my mind from all sin. Find the square root of our being. Reduce all vulgar fractions; resolve our equations to simple terms. In the name of the holy trigonometry, Cos, Sin and Tan. Q.E.D.
‘Right, will you put your books away now please. Connie, has anything happened that I ought to know about? Has the form been reported or, much less likely, commended?’
‘No Miss Stevens.’
‘The formroom looks rather bare. Are there any suggestions for brightening it up? Yes Jacequeline? Some flowers would be a good idea but they might be rather expensive. Who’s going to pay for them if no one has any in the garden she can bring?’
‘If we all paid a penny a week we could buy some.’
‘Yes Thelma. That’s a good idea. I’ll put twopence as I’m earning. Shall we vote on that? Those in favour of a penny a week from everyone for the flower fund. Anyone against? No. Who will volunteer to collect the money? Not a very pleasant job I’m afraid. Carole. Thankyou. Will you add that to the list of monitors please Connie? Anymore suggestions? Some of your pictures. Yes, that’s a good idea. A wall display. News items and cuttings. Suggestions for ideal holidays, and postcards when you come back. Who’s neat and good at art to take charge of this? Joan. Yes, that’s a good choice. Anyone want to suggest someone else? No. Then Joan we expect to see some results as soon as possible. There’s the bell now girls. Get out of the formroom as soon as possible and along to the hall or the library. Which dinner are you? One. Then it might have stopped raining before you come out. Oh by the way, I need two volunteers; wait Rosemary you don’t know what it is yet, two people to tidy the Blue Games Cupboard. Thankyou. I’ll be along to see how you’re getting on before the bell goes. You know where all the things should be. It’s just a matter of putting them back in their places, checking the list and letting me know if there’s anything missing. That’ll be a great help. I expect Miss Samuels will also be along to see how you’re doing so don’t let her find you playing football in the corridor will you? And no singsongs either please girls.’
Thank God I’m not on dinner duty today with them all in their formrooms. Let’s hope it’s stopped before this afternoon. Don’t fancy trotting to the baths in this, and then there’s the fifth and sixth for hockey last thing. Still it turned on very conveniently maybe it’ll turn off again.
Millie’s first in as usual; got the table laid and her elbow going before anyone else gets through the door. Goes round lifting all the covers to see which plate’s got the most on. Maybe I’ll be like that when I get to her age. Must be due to retire next year and this is her only meal of the day apart from a cup of tea while she feeds the pussies.
‘Hallo Mary. Recovered yet?’
/> ‘Still a bit weak about the knees. What did she want you for?’
‘Oh something about the timetable for next term.’
‘Not long now.’
‘Reckon we could all do with a break.’
‘Personally I never find the term long enough.’
‘No Mrs. Masters but then you’ve got a long syllabus to get through.’ Avoid that table; the old girl’ll sit there. That one’ll do. Only our loving couple talking about art and making eyes at each other. Romeo and Juliet the kids call them, the sixth anyway. Wonder how far they go. Rather sweet once you get over the slightly grotesque aspect of it, neither of them being oil paintings. What was that story about Miss Evans going to the English stockroom one day and catching them with their arms round each other and little Cornall sobbing on the Witch’s bony chest? Funny how no one ever suspects me. Because I’m still young enough to get away with it I suppose unless Knowing about Peter makes a difference.
‘Is anyone sitting here Miss Witchard?’
‘No. I’ll just move my bag.’
‘Thanks.’
‘I don’t see any sign of March going out like a lamb this year do you Miss Stevens?’
‘I don’t indeed. In fact looking out of these windows the view is distinctly Turneresque.’ Watch her twitter with pleasure now and the Witch get all angular with jealousy. Don’t worry mate, I don’t want her. All I’m waiting for is little Mam’selle to come tripping through the door.
‘You are a dark horse Miss Stevens. I didn’t know you liked Turner.’
‘Ah, we’re not completely without culture in the games department. I believe Mary has rather a nice line in traditional etchings the favoured are invited to view.’
‘You should know by now Frances that Miss Stevens is never serious.’
I suppose they put it down to a broken heart or else think I’m hard boiled like Mary, and pity poor Peter and think what a rotten time I must have given him. True up to a point I suppose. Wonder how he’s getting on. Must be making quite a pile by now. Weeks pass and I never think of him. It’s as if those two years had never existed. Then suddenly I remember all the misery of it for us both.
The Microcosm Page 6