Diary of an Assistant Mistress (13 page)

Wednesday 7th September

The noise. I don't know how but I simply forgot how noisy schools are. The ringing bells, the shouting children, the muttering children (35 children muttering can be deafening), the desks being rearranged upstairs (how often do they have to rearrange the damned things? What are they teaching? Furniture removal?) and George boasting about the size of his epidiascope.

Thursday 8th September

Why are the seventh year so cocky this year? I cannot stand children crying on the first day at "The Big School" but I do expect them to be slightly subdued. Not a bit of it. Our attempts to create a caring and welcoming atmosphere have been too damned successful.

Tried to have sex while using Victor the Vibro. I am sure it can be done but not in this position!

Friday 9th September

Extra hour of Inservice Training after school. Better than bus duty, I suppose. Simonovitch introduced it with the words, "You will be asked to do things which appear to be silly and/or pointless." A fair definition of teaching I suppose.

There followed a series of drama exercises which included lining up in height order and lining up in order of our political beliefs. George and I walked to opposite walls and each claimed that it was the true left.

I found myself with Andrew who is a probationer with the sort of small buttocks that might distract someone with less iron will than myself - at least I managed to keep my hands to myself - and the sort of views which George is bound to find more than distracting.

Andrew does not believe in setting or streaming or literature or cricket or practically any of George's shibboleths. The meeting ended without them coming to blows - mainly because Andrew was talking to me rather than George.

Only 69 days to the end of term - and talking of 69, guess what James had in mind tonight.

Saturday 10th September

Shopping at the Co-op. Met Stuart who is either in 3S or 9q2. He wanted to know what scrofulas meant. I did not have to ask who was teaching him Maths. Pat Dixon routinely insults his pupils, male or female. He once confided to me that he uses the term "scrofulous youth" to save him from learning the names of his pupils. He is one of the most popular teachers I have come across. Stuart was delighted with my definition and nudged his companion, who I do not know, saying, "See."

I pointed out that Mr Dixon was probably using the adjective. Stuart was uninterested in the grammatical niceties but thought it was an example of mysterious occult powers that I could work out where he had heard the word. As I left he said to his friend in a stage whisper, "You reckon she's sleeping with him?" I turned round and gave him what my mother would have called "an old fashioned look."

Sunday 11th September

"The curse has come upon me!" cried the Lady of Shallott, but she didn't have judo gradings tomorrow night.

Monday 12th September

The fateful meeting of the governors is Friday next week. Torquemada reminded me during coffee. I had the sense not to be lured into his RE cupboard this time but we were pushed rather close together in the mad scramble for caffeine. I have never been molested by someone's elbows before. He has remarkably bony elbows. Like being touched up by a skeleton. I don't.

Judo gradings. Sensei took the opportunity to give the juveniles a stern warning about using judo off the mat and the possibility of instant expulsion from club for anyone caught so doing. Just as well I didn't introduce Torquemada's head to the coffee urn, perhaps.

Tuesday 13th September

We really do have some dumb computers in this school. Two of the PCs thought it was Friday 13th and started dropping letters off the screen. Quick Dr Solomon, do something!

After school I ran a virus check. Nothing. Someone must have just put a "joke" virus on the machine. You need some knowledge to write a virus. None at all to put a disk in a drive and press "reset."

Wednesday 14th September

Only nine days to G-day. PMT reminded me at break that he could do nothing, which was very reassuring. Least of all can he get me a list of the damned governors and I am not crawling (or whatever other ritual humiliation he has in mind) to Torquemada.

The Rev John has said that he will tip off the Labour members of the committee about the situation but I suspect that they may be Second Comers too so they will be well tipped-off already.

This afternoon, young Jason handed in the following, "Laura as a brest inplart the reson for this headline is becuase she is laking behind in maturity use boy fill sorry for her and helen needs one to. most girl in 8q3En need one as well."

He did not sign it but it could only be him or James. James' handwriting looks as though a spider has crawled across the page. Jason's looks as if the spider had a large whisky first. In any case James had signed his.

I could hardly take the matter further when I am fighting a moral turpitude rap. I will hand it over to Jason's parents at the next parents' evening.

Thursday 15th September

Met one of the better Labour councillors on the board of governors. She sympathised with anyone who got on the wrong side of the Snooks and said something like "forewarned is forearmed," then tried to get me to sign a petition against pornography. I explained that the state would probably use any extra powers to ban programs like "Making Out" or "The Men's Room" from the TV and in any case censorship was not the answer.

Half way through this it struck me that my moral turpitude was showing but it was too late to be a good girl by this time.

Friday 16th September

Inservice Training. Come here, Andrew, pretend you are a schoolboy and let me do things to your profile. That lasted fifteen minutes. The other 45 were taken up with Simonovitch lecturing us.

Sensing my mood from subtle hints like a flannel in the ear, James decided to cheer me up by taking me out for a drink at the Red Lion. Met a parent - or at least someone who knew I was a teacher - who started slagging me off for being in a pub and setting a poor example to the kiddies. I tried pointing out that he was in a pub too, but he was in no fit state to understand the point.

Saturday 17th September

Judo contest at parish hall. Out in the first round. It strikes me that judo is a very effective method of education. Skills are "cascaded" with black belts teaching green belts and green belts teaching red belts etc. (no sport for the colour-blind this). Pupils find themselves bowing to teachers and find teachers bowing to them.

The most impressive thing is the enthusiasm of the pupils and the ƒbrespect with which they treat each other when they help each other to learn in randori. Sunday 18th September

No ill effects from judo yesterday. This suggests it is doing me good.

Started tidying up the cupboard under the sink. ƒbSomething moved in the ashtray.

I routed out old Samovar and set him on the putative beast, which turned out to be a cobweb blown by the wind. Why this should stiffen my resolve to remain a non-smoker I cannot explain.

Monday 19th September

Had a cigarette. "Just the one." From George. He complained that my nerves were getting on his.

Judo. Almost cadged a cigarette from the one smoker among the judoka but some remnant of pride held me back.

I put a stop to James' attentions by telling him he smelt like an old ashtray. He looked puzzled. He looked even more puzzled when I asked him for a cigarette. He offered to play strip poker for it. This seemed a little excessive since I was only wearing a nightdress. "But it is king-size." he tempted. Boasting again.

[Reader, it was king-size but I didn't get the cigarette.]

Tuesday 20th September

I did not smoke today. I chewed the head off some almost innocent eighth year but I did not smoke. I dropped George's packet of twenty down the ladies' loo.

Then came Temptation. Lucy spilt the contents of her handbag over the IT room floor and there was a packet of - it turned out to be two - Consulate. With the sort of will power one usually sees in martyrs, I managed to screw them up and throw them in the bin. I hadn't the heart or the hypocrisy to give Lucy a lecture on smoking. I just said that there was no point in teaching people anything if they then went and dropped dead with cancer or heart disease.

"But you smoke, Miss Power."

I thought about lying - one cigarette this year isn't much after all, but I expect she saw me through the staffroom window [some net curtains are in order, I feel.]

"You smoke, I smoke. If you can give it up, so can I." Arranged to see Lucy first thing tomorrow. We can't monitor each other out of school but it is in school that I am under most stress.

Wednesday 21st September

Saw Lucy at registration. There were no cigarettes in her bag but a distinct aroma of menthol on her breath. I showed her the inside of my bag and didn't really know what to say next. Do I try to encourage her and let her think she has pulled a fast one on me or do I accuse her and alienate her?

I was thinking about this when she offered me a Halls extra-menthol sweet, saying that they take her mind off cigarettes. They also take the roof off my mouth but I accepted it gladly.

G-day is the day after tomorrow. George advised me that I shouldn't wear such short skirts because they make me look like a tart. He didn't take too kindly to my retort that his ties make him look like a ponce. Torquemada, who was hovering at my right hand - [oh for a lighted cigarette at times like this!] - said "I think Mrs Power has you there, Mr Tomlinson."

George protested that he was just offering helpful advice in a private conversation. I didn't find the advice helpful but I turned my back on Torquemada to stress that the conversation was private.

Thursday 22nd September

No Lucy today. I found out from the registers that she was absent with a bad cough.

George's indignation at Snooks and all things Snooksy knows no bounds. The things he would do to that Board of Governors if he were in my position would make "each particular hair to stand on end like quills upon the fearful porpentine." to quote an obligatory white male poet and playwright.

Of course he isn't in my position so the things he actually will do ... wouldn't seriously incommode the skin of a rice pudding - to paraphrase my mother.

Friday 23rd September

The day has dawned and with a pathetic reversal of the pathetic fallacy it has dawned sunny and bright. Today the governors have commandeered the library. It is closed all day to be tarted (or ponced!) up for their meeting this evening and Snooks has been seen going around the library testing all the chairs - presumably in case some overweight Tory burgess should come a cropper.

I taught all day and managed to push the whole business out of my mind. Simonovitch was more boring than usual and Andrew has given up coming to INSET. Odd move for a probationer. Perhaps I frightened him off but it might just be Simonovitch. He could bore for Britain.

Saturday 24th September

Relieved and disgusted in almost equal measure. Rang my tame Labour councillor, Patricia. Apparently, I needn't have worried. Snooks was the main victim at the meeting, her spending plans conflict with council guidelines.

Everything else was squeezed off the agenda by the united efforts of Labour and Tory councillors to cut education spending. The parent governors are also Tory councillors of course so it was left to PMT to support Snooks, which he did to the best of his ambitious ability.

Patricia wants me to come to a Women's Group on Monday. I explained that I have judo on Monday. She started denouncing judo as male-dominated and violent. I started explaining the difference between Yokohama judo clubs and the rest but I think it was lost on her.

Sunday 25th September

Oz arrived with the milk this morning. He had been "walking about all night" and this is hardly the weather for it. I put on the kettle, James offered him a drink. He eventually settled for a very large scotch, washed down with another.

What has happened is about as clear as anything Oz tries to explain. Some sort of altercation with Jane about Oz carrying on with one of his female colleagues. [Oz was remarkably coy about which one. Clair and Tessa will be subjected to the Power thumbscrews tomorrow.]

He may have walked out in high dudgeon; she may have shown him the door. From the look of him, she may have shown him a cobwebbed downstairs window and the back hedge - but this is his normal appearance.

When the phone rang, he squealed, "Don't tell her I'm here!" and virtually hid under the sofa. We managed to lever him out of the house after he had had a modest lunch - both of ours actually - and most of the hock.

Monday 26th September

To celebrate my reinstatement (?), the Skoda decided to give up the ghost. Of course it was pouring with rain - at least the drought is at an end.

Clair was completely mystified by the Oz imbroglio, but Tessa had exactly the same expression on her face as Oz had on his when I raised the matter with my usual tact and diplomacy ("Have you been screwing Muesli, then?")

Our beloved leader was off work with diplomatic toothache himself and I had to cover his wretched TVE students: personally I would rather have an enema with nitric acid than teach TVE.

Tuesday 27th September

I now have it on the very best of authority that Jane is now concerned that Oswald "wandering hands" Davidson has been straying in my direction. The source was Muesli himself, back from his bout of 24 hour buggeroff. He started dropping hints of fairly large proportions while apologising for lumbering me with his TVE knuckle-scrapers yesterday.

I did not in fact say "The very idea!" but I will admit that I thought it. I can imagine where Jane gets these ideas and I expect telling her that there is no truth in it will not do any good.

I did Tessa's bus duty for her today - in one of those complicated deals which involve me borrowing her Pritt Stick and her relinquishing her TV booking for alternate Wednesdays. Young Rick was going round saying to every girl in the bus queue, "Suck my duck." This is almost punishable but I would feel such a fool explaining it. In the end I observed fairly loudly that I thought he was a bit too old for that sort of thing - all the girls laughed but then so did he.