‘Good, that’s five more certificates this afternoon. Make sure you’ve got clean blouses for Friday and you can go up onto the platform in assembly and receive them. Get dressed now girls or you’ll be late for your next lesson.’
‘Can we have a commended Miss?’
‘Go on Miss. No one ever gives us a commended.’
‘If you can be dressed and lined up with hardly a sound in five minutes, yes.’
‘See you shut your row Cynthy, we want a commended!’
‘I ’ent the one makes all the row.’
‘If you both carry on for five minutes like that you certainly won’t get one. Find yourselves separate cubicles and get on with it.’
Mary’ll be along with her lot in a minute. Just about get these cleared in time. Four per cent. Wonder who it’ll be out of this lot. They’ve all got their mates; hunt in pairs mostly; split up at the end of the evening. But they’re together all day and God help anyone who tries to come between them. Jealousy, possessiveness. She’s my friend not yourn. Doesn’t seem to be any physical side to it though, not like boys. Still there’s no need since they’ve all got boy friends as well. Get all the sex they want there and no urge to masturbate either. Might even be Cynthia. She’s the most aggressive. More likely someone who doesn’t seem to have a boy friend. Cynthy’s just a typical working-class brassy mum of the old style. Look at her now with her hair wringing wet still and her skirt held together with safety pins, ladders all up those massive legs. Just the figure for a Willendorf Venus. Must ask Mrs. Masters if she’s noticed.
‘Well that was quick and quiet. Your can have your commended. Don’t forget to go in quietly past Miss Samuels’ door will you or you might lose it as soon as you’ve got it. Off you go then. Here’s the next relay ready to take your places.’
‘’Ent they sweet Miss. Wish we was still like that.’
‘Oh you’re not so bad as you are. See you on Wednesday. Be good.’
‘I’d rather be clever Miss.’
‘Get changed 1b. But no one in the water until Miss Baker says you may.’
Fourteen-year-olds lamenting their lost innocence. Already they feel they’ve left us behind and when that happens you can’t hold them. What have we got to offer them anyway? Sometimes they come back to see you and say they wish they’d stayed on but it’s only another verse of the elegy for the golden age that never was when I was a girl. Yet in a curious way they’re more innocent than the fifths and sixth. Maybe they’re just better integrated. Less conflict between heaven and hell, id and super-ego as the textbooks have it now, forbidden needs. ‘It’s illegal, it’s immoral or it makes you fat.’ Their moral code is so much simpler. No real taboo except against hurting other people more than you can help and the law doesn’t come into it unless you get caught. That’s why they fit into our way of life so much better too, take it in their stride so much more like Jonnie. No feelings of guilt and self torment like our intellectuals, should I, shouldn’t I. Only themselves to adjust to not the rest of society as well.
Last game of the season this; last game most of them’ll ever play. Exams, start next week, then Easter and when we come back it’ll be tennis and rounders. Can’t say I’m sorry. Never a game I really took to hockey and this trail up to the heath doesn’t help. Wonder how big the audience’ll be this time. All the layabouts and dirty old men from miles around. Definitely the last appearance of the Stevens Girls. Fortunately it’d be a brave man who’d interfere with one of our Amazons armed with a hockey stick and a ball as hard as a blackjack. Not that I’d have thought they looked very fetching in those bloody great pads but maybe they’re always waiting for them to bend over to pick up the ball.
This is when the real temptations start of course if you’re honest with yourself. Not that it’d last or that anything would come of it but they’re as old as a lot of the people you’d consider eligible if you met them outside and the situation encourages it, thrown together all day. Not bad looking too some of them and easy to begin picking out the four per cent.
There’s Frances Dawson, unmistakeable butch type. Knows what she wants too. Been after Betty Hawkes since her fourth year. Picked the wrong one there though. Betty’s only interested in herself. See why she tries though. Really beautiful, another Venus but this one is Ceres or Persephone: corn goddess, Scandinavian beauty, blond hair and china blue eyes. Spends all her time in the staff cloakroom admiring herself in the mirror. Can’t tell me she doesn’t know what it’s all about after three years at art school. Enjoys being admired by someone who can only worship and never soil. That’s why she doesn’t like going out with men. Afraid the holy shrine will be profaned by rude hands, might put her in the family way and ruin that perfect figure.
Jealous? In a way I suppose I am but I know it wouldn’t work. I’d want to muss up that carefully flowing hair, spoil that mouth with kissing. Still maybe it’d be worth it just to lie and look at it. Frances follows her everywhere. You can always find them deep in intense conversation in the corridor. Wonder what little Trotty Cornall thinks of it.
Hilary Ash too, playing in goal, is another one, feminine though. Crazy about Mrs. Parry still although she’s nineteen nearly. Often wonder about Mrs. Parry too. Married of course but that doesn’t necessarily mean anything. Definitely a masculine type and doesn’t do all that much to discourage Hilary. She might make a proper transference to boys of course but she’s certainly a very late developer, intelligent too.
A lot of us seem to start like that with what’d be called a crush at thirteen or fourteen still with us when we leave school and no longer calf love. A hitch in the mechanism maybe, a switch that doesn’t throw at the right moment but the blueprint was there as a condition of birth and we’ve only gone on building along the lines laid down for us and when the thing’s finished and they find it doesn’t work as it should there’s no taking the thing apart and starting again if there’s a bit that’s missing even the headshrinkers have to admit that.
Poor Peter. I was so grateful to him for giving me an exit I even felt guilty about it. Everyone was horrified. ‘How can you break the engagement just when he needs you most? I don’t understand girls today.’ I was right though so right and it was our life. And then mother’s disgust when I said I wanted to do something active not sit around for three years with my nose in a book. But I didn’t know how it would be.
Tommy could have told me I suppose if I’d been able to ask him. He must have been used to it all at boarding school. Didn’t take me long to realise there was something a bit odd somewhere though I hardly even knew the word queer then. Funny when you think back.
Thank God this lot can get on without me. Definitely not with it today. Something’s put me right off my stroke. Surely not the little French piece. Janine. Pretty name. Dresses well. Nice legs.
That was when I first started noticing legs, and bodies, female bodies. In the changing rooms and the showers. Fascinated, trying not to stare. Going into people’s rooms at night when they were reading in bed and feeling I didn’t know what. And the suggestions with a knowing smile until I seemed to be the only one who didn’t know. And then when the penny dropped. ‘Here come our newly weds. How’s the honeymoon going?’ Havelock Ellis out of the college library and then anything else I could lay my hands on. And I wanted to discuss it with someone but didn’t know how to begin. And then suddenly it was too late for talking. ‘I was beginning to think you’d never wake up.’
Face it, face it now after all this time, she used you. It never meant as much to her as it did to you. Just an interlude before marriage because she had to have some release and she didn’t want to spoil her chances by slipping up. She never really loved you at all.
Still sore, still the ache. She never really loved me. Can we really love? Or is that the baby we threw out with the bath water? Dare I chance it again? But I was in love with her.
Not again, no, never like that. Only once like that ever. Older now. The smile awry, the slick ans
wer. That’s why nothing happens at the club. I know every story too well. Who’s been with whom and how often. Have to make a fresh start without the weight of other lives, other loves to drag us down or it hasn’t a chance that delicate seedling. Needs light and air and warmth, not hothouse forcing on a diet of alcohol and salt water.
Tired now. Thoughts drag. Not much of an audience today. Weather kept them away. Didn’t think we’d be here. Only another quarter of an hour and I can blow the whistle. Have to go back to see the form out. How to evade Rosemary that’s the problem. Not in the mood for soulful looks and having to be bright, keeping the child off.
Woman over there with a little girl in a blue mack and Wellingtons. Wonder what she’ll grow up to be. Easter, what shall I do with it this year? Not home to mother, not this time. Funny how she’s got more religious as she’s got older, since dad died, and yet while he was alive it was more a social thing than spiritual. Tommy’s turn. He doesn’t mind going to church. Rather fancies the curate if it’s still the one with red hair. I’ll tell him that. Give him an incentive.
Chilly standing here. The kids are better running about. Kids! Seem to throw them bigger every year. Must be all the milk and better food as well as the games. Bonny is the word for this lot. Still they’ll lose a lot of that when they start trying to live on a grant or a bun for dinner in their hour off from the office.
Have to take the timetable home with me tonight. Thank God there aren’t any reports this term except for the fifths and sixth. Must remember to get Janet’s before they disappear into the Witch’s clutches. She always keeps them for weeks; writes great screeds on everyone. They’re a conscientious lot the older ones. Still believe in what they’re doing even though it’s more of a struggle every year; against the tide. Can’t understand either why the kids are so different, old before their time with a false sophistication, why they don’t have the same values anymore. Blank faces looking back at you. ‘Why not Miss?’ Feel the children are laughing at them, mocking. That’s when they crack up, in their fifties. Struggling against the waters, building walls and ramparts of sand, flushed away by the chuckle of little waves. The house that is founded upon a rock only maybe there aren’t any left. Hope Trotty Cornall looks after her. All need someone to look after us. Time to blow up.
‘That’s it then. Your last game of hockey, some of you anyway. Have you heard from Holmwood yet Janet?’
‘I’ve got an interview in a fortnight’s time.’
‘That’s good. She’s a bit of an eccentric Miss Bowers. Brush up on your uses of physical education. Mens sana in corpore sano and all that jazz and look straight at her when you answer and you’ll probably be alright. Oh and she’s very keen on bare feet. That’s where I get it from, and free expression too. The natural approach.’
‘Why didn’t we have more of that then Miss Stevens?’
‘Because I inherited someone else’s syllabus and these things aren’t easy to alter in a hurry as you’ll find. Well another couple of weeks and the mock’ll be over and you’ll all know the worst. Anyone feel like jumping off a bridge? Good. It wastes such a lot of time. Is anyone going back to school? Would you take the pads and sticks between you then? Thanks. Go straight home and don’t talk to any strange men on the way will you? Must rush. Have to see my form out. Did they behave themselves at register this afternoon Hilary? Thank goodness for that. It makes a change. Goodnight girls.’
Tired. Tired of my tongue rolling off the platitudes; attitudes of omniscience and omnipotence; the false front all the time. Roll on the end of term. Get away. Paris where nobody cares what you do or how you dress and the streets are full of individuals. Wonder if Janine is going home for Easter. Take me with you. Flee with me to the casbah. Oh yes.
‘Everyone suitably dressed? Goodnight then girls. See you in the morning. Off you go Rosemary.’
‘Goodnight Miss Stevens.’
How can I avoid her? Go out of the main gate and up to the bus stop instead of walking to the station. Lord dismiss us. The day though gavest. Evenings are drawing out. Going home in the light. Clocks’ll be put on soon. Long light evenings with time to do something after school instead of just creeping home to our burrows to sit in front of the gas fire rocking our loneliness. Maybe Janine plays tennis. The ball singing back and forth over the net. There used to be summers. I remember that first summer at college. No, not that. Don’t think about it. Away, push it away. Back and forth, singing. ‘Come in darlings, it’s time for bed.’ Lighten our darkness we beseech thee. O lord nearly forgot the timetable. Have to go back to the staffroom.
There was a thing to walk slap into. Just the two of them and looking as if the Witch had been crying too. A bag stuffed with books to take home and pencil through. Cracking up. Won’t make it if she isn’t careful. Weather doesn’t help. This wind wears your last shreds of energy away. Naked came we into this world. Her face had that pinched tightness; every line drawn fine. Poor dad. God what do we do when we’re old?
There’s the café. ‘Egg and chips please. For you too?’ ‘Oh yes.’ Oh yes, yes please. I’ve been apart too long. Tomorrow. And then maybe summer again and a white ball singing, swinging back and forth in the long light evenings. Love twenty. Game and match. Come in darling, it’s time for bed.
Poor Rosemary. Wonder how long she’ll wait. Grow out of it I expect. Somebody else next year or the gawky boy next door. Mustn’t let the Knight get away with it, trying to put her down. Mustn’t let her be twisted and cramped to fit the mould. Watch it. Getting over anxious. End up like the old brigade; dedicated, dessicated. And what if it doesn’t come to anything? Does it matter? I’m still alive. God make me chaste but not yet. Better than this half life you’ve been living. Better than hiding from a memory; too smart to be caught. Faint-heart and the fayre ladye. ‘Egg and chips for two please.’ Oh yes. ‘Both together please. I’ll pay.’ Whatever the price. Put it down on my account.
Just make the five past if this bus gets a move on, in with the first of the city gents and the last of the school kids, couple of building workers in clayey overalls. All the world going home to tea, seeing a spinster, a school marm with chalk in her hair and if they only knew.
Being now in as great distress as ever our adventurer was once more forced to cast about for somewhat to relieve stark necessity and therefore set forth to visit a certain lady known to her from her childhood, and finding her seated in the parlour with her husband was easily prevailed upon to take some slight refreshment and to entertain them with a recital of her present circumstances, and though it was not in their power to serve her other than with their good wishes and advice yet they did their utmost to convince her how much they had it in their hearts to do what they could.
Sure husband, cries the wife. Here is a poor young gentleman bred to better things and brought down to the sad condition of want you now behold and that through no fault of his own but only through the hardness of a parent’s heart and the cruel knocks of fate. Then turning to the poor actor asked what means she proposed for a subsistence giving her to understand that the good man was quite ignorant of her true identity.
Madam, our adventurer answered, I have for so long been innured to the hardships of the mind that I should think those of the body rather a kind relief if they would afford but daily bread for my poor child and self, and truly there is nothing which does not exceed the bounds of honesty that I should think unworthy of my undertaking.
With that the good woman turning once more to her husband began a long apology with many knowing winks and nods as one who would suggest something to a deaf mute by signs rather than words, the purport of which she was at a loss to piece together for some time but arriving at the drift of her hostess’ discourse as it were by the back door she repeated her assurances that nothing was too humble for one who stood in need of a crust.
Then said the good woman, since you care not what you do so long as it be honest, which is a sentiment all right minded people must commend in you, I
propose that you, my dear husband should bespeak the waiter’s place but now vacant at Mrs. Dorr’s for our young friend and carry him thither in the morning to wait upon her.
Accordingly it was arranged and the following day they set forth together for the King’s Head at Mary-la-Bonne. The gentlewoman was exceedingly pleased at the appearance and manner of the would-be waiter but upon perceiving him to wear a melancholy aspect and understanding that he was well born and bred she began to be fearful that the place might prove too hard for him. For, said she, I am afraid that you will lay to heart the impertinence you must frequently be liable to from the lower class of people who, when in their cups, pay no regard either to humanity or good manners. Such a young gentleman as you seem to be would of a surety do better to seek some less robust employment. I would not for all the world be the means to render you more desperate than your present unhappy condition must make you although in advising you thus I rob myself of an honest servant.
Seeing his new-found position lost or ever it was gained Charles, for so he had been introduced to Mrs. Dorr, begged her not to be under the least apprehension of his receiving any shock on that account. Notwithstanding, cried he, that I was not born to servitude, since misfortune has reduced me to it, I think it a degree of happiness that a mistaken pride hath not foolishly endowed me with a contempt for getting an honest livelihood. I would rather a thousand times prudently endeavour to forget what I have been and submit to the severities of fortune which at this time it is not in my power to amend than perish by haughty penury.
This noble speech so affected the good woman that she manifested her concern by a hearty shower of tears, declaring that the place was his if he would have it and it was agreed that he should begin the next day. In the morning therefore Charles presented himself early and to Mrs. Dorr’s surprise soon proved himself a handy creature, and being light and nimble, tripped up and down stairs with that alacrity of spirit and agility of body that is natural to those gentlemen of the tap-tub though as Hob says the house also sold all sorts of wine and punch.
The Microcosm Page 8