Diary of an Assistant Mistress (15 page)

We talked all morning about everything. Apparently Daniel returned during August and talked his way back into Mrs Rosch's bed without any great difficulty. Within days he was "up to his old tricks" with Emma. She told a convincing story of continual tricks she had used to put him off, to make sure they were never alone together.

On Friday - and it did flash though my mind that it was more or less at the time that James and I were up to our kitchen antics - the pair of them had come in very drunk. Her mother was well out of it before he started to work on Emma and in any case she was too scared to yell out. As far as she knew they were both still asleep.

She had gone to one or two of her friends but none of them would have anything to do with her (there was a long story attached to that as well - involving two twelfth year pupils). So as a last resort she had come to me.

She wouldn't go to the cops (I don't blame her in the least) and she wouldn't even go to the rape crisis centre with me. In the end I got her to agree to my ringing her mother.

Naturally I got Daniel. I had a job getting past him to Mrs Rosch but I did it in the end. Mrs Rosch was heavily hung-over and it took a lot of explanation to get her to come round ƒb on her own.

Then when she arrived, Emma went silent on me. It took ages to coax the story out of her but I watched Mrs Rosch as she told her story and it was clear that she believed what her daughter was saying.

They left together. I have no great confidence that Mrs Rosch can give up Daniel but she has promised to kick him out.

Sunday 23rd October

George and Edie for lunch. We drank a great deal of brash young Algerian claret. I happened to mention Emma Rosch in another context and George, with his usual insight into human motivation, used the word "slag" which drew a sharp response from Edie and myself and incidentally interrupted Edie's attempts to seduce James. (I am sure that is the wrong verb - a woman just has to exist to arouse James' appetites.)

That was the end of any hanky panky for the afternoon but we had a magnificent argument. Mind you, I expect even John Major thinks he sounds brilliant after that much cheap wine.

Monday 24th October

Got hold of Pat at lunchtime and explained the Emma situation to him. Pat and I are getting on much better this term and he didn't resent my telling him that there really was nothing we could do. Emma has already told me how she would respond to any social workers who took an interest in her case. Social workers are the same as the police to her and the idea of telling them the truth not only does not appeal, it didn't actually occur to her as an option.

Then I lost my drama class. I arrived at the drama hall (why do we call it that? It is almost permanantly out of commission, being used for exams or some mysterious purpose) to find they had been redirected ... but where?

Frantic searching eventually revealed them sitting quietly in a Maths room. They had made no trouble but also no effort to alert anyone to their presence. It was too late for the lesson so we all had a good laugh about it and let it go at that.

Emma sought me out at the end of the day. It seems I underestimated Mrs Rosch. It seems she had gone home, gone straight to the kitchen to get hold of a bread knife, kicked Daniel out of bed and offered to deconstruct parts of his anatomy if he set foot in the neighbourhood again. This threat was accompanied with various thrusts with the bread knife and Daniel took it fairly seriously.

Not that seriously because he returned on Sunday with a bottle of vodka in his trouser pocket (a flat bottle presumably). Mother and daughter then went into a pre-arranged act with Emma ringing the Talking Clock and pretending to call the police and Emma senior making a dash for the cutlery.

He ended up tripping on the doormat and causing himself what I hope was a permanent injury with the vodka bottle. Emma broke off her conversation with Tim long enough to call an ambulance but neithr of them lifted a finger to help him and he went off in the ambulance on his own - they both claimed not to know who he was and let him talk to the ambulance crew as best he could, which was not very well.

My old mother used to say that God pays debts without money.

Tuesday 25th October

I should not have made any reference to my old mother - my old atheist mother to be precise - yesterday. Lo and behold, a letter arrived this morning from my brother indicating that he is going away this Christmas and it is ƒb my turn this year.

We have managed to remain polite (at least polite by our standards) as long as we are not under the same roof. James says that we are like sub-critical masses: safe enough apart, sudden death together. Not a very flattering analogy actually.

Then I found that I was drinking James' tea. Call me a racist, but I don't like Ceylonese tea (I think Mrs Bandaranaike has a lot to answer for). James started pretending to choke and to add injury to insult he had taken the last Co-op Earl Grey tea bag. "Co-op Earl Grey, what sort of socialist do you think Earl Grey was then?" was his only comment.

The day didn't get much better. I got into a row with a Christian Aid collector (haven't we already had a Christian Aid week this year?) I told her that Christian Aid didn't raise enough money to keep a bishop in mistresses but it didn't go down very well.

Wednesday 26th October

A day of room changes. Some notified. Some un-notified and some merely accidental. Of course this meant that my classes ended up practically anywhere in the building.

I had forgotten that we were going to the flicks. I saw part of "Dances with Lambs" but fell asleep. James had the sense not to wake me up. He tells me my snoring shook the auditorium.

Thursday 27th October

Called in to Oz's office. I feared the worst but I wasn't on the carpet for once. He told me quite formally that he and Jane had split up and he was going to live with Tessa. I gave him a garbled message of sympathy and congratulation and invited them both round for dinner tonight.

At dinner, Oz and Tessa were more like an old married couple than star-struck lovers. There were lines of strain on Tessa's forehead that I didn't remark before. Oz has always looked like that - perhaps it is catching.

Oz was drinking rather heavily but then so was Tessa. I rather assumed that they had come by taxi.

When Oz produced his car keys I was momentarily flabbergasted, then I made a lunge for them and so did James. We bumped heads rather painfully but it seemed to bring Oz to his senses. He and Tessa sat down for one last whisky while I rang for a cab.

It was then that Oz made an apparently irrelevant reference to George and Edie and then told me about one of his neighbours who went to a wife-swapping party and got his own wife back. He then gave me a look which I can only describe as sly. I looked at James, James looked at me (then he looked at Tessa and I kicked him and he looked at me again) and Tessa looked from Oz to me and back again and closed her handbag with a snap like the crack of doom. I think she will keep Oz in order quite nicely

Friday 28th October

Did I imagine it, or was our head of department just a little subdued this morning?

I met Torquemada in the corridor and he said that he must have a word with me at lunchtime. Considering all the options I made sure that he didn't get the opportunity by spending most of the lunch break in my classroom putting 10m(En)2's work on homonyms on the board. He came round to my room after school.

I assumed that he wanted to talk about his Christian Aid acolyte but apparently it was the general moral decline of the English department that was exercising him.

General moral laxity, free love (do Methodists pay for it?) and progressive views were all undermining the morals of the pupils. Some of us, he hinted darkly, will no longer tolerate this. An example will have to be made.

Saturday 29th October

Shopping at Safeways. Met Mrs Crooke. She gave me another lecture about teaching English. Mr Crooke runs a garage (with a name like that, it figures), I asked her how fond he was of people coming in and telling him how to run his garage. She didn't get the point, or indeed pause for breath.

I was even able to quote chapter and verse from the National Cur about grammar not being taught as a separate entity but she has clearly closed her mind and thrown away the key.

Sunday 30th October

Son of Victor! James produced this device; gold in colour and very small. When he started to use it I didn't immediately detect any difference but then the vibrations got faster, and faster and faster.

In the end, apparently I was screaming, but I certainly wasn't screaming for it to stop!

Monday 31st October

Oz came in to my form room looking very grim. At first I thought it must be some problem with his personal life. When he said what I thought was "I have a letter from the crooks," I assumed it was some communication from Jane's solicitors.

Then suddenly I knew it wasn't. Mrs Crooke had addressed a letter to Snooks setting out a comparison between the work young Crooke had done and the work a pupil in one of Alistair's classes had done.

According to this letter, Alistair's forms have done nothing but sentence analysis all year - which seems inherently unlikely. Oz said there was no rush but he wanted all my lesson plans and schemes of work for the year by tomorrow.

Encouraged by last night, James had brought one of his videos home. He found me knocking seven bells out of the Dell and dropping the odd tear of rage on the keyboard.

I did not sleep.

Tuesday 1st November

In Snooks' office. The Crooke was there, Oz was supposed to be defending me but he had gone sick with diplomatic cowardice. I produced my immaculate file of recently updated lesson plans and schemes of work. "I don't want to see that rubbish." said Mrs Crooke, and swept it into a waste bin. The Snooks made no remonstration but smiled behind her hand as I dug the file out.

I talked about the grammar work which I had set for young Crooke but mum angrily rejected that as irrelevant. What she wanted to know was why Mr Cook's classes had been taught prepositions and her son hadn't.

I explained that "Knowledge about language could not be separated from language itself." She said she didn't hold with that left-wing nonsense and I pointed out (rather mildly I thought) that it was a quotation from the Conservative Party's National Curriculum.

I sat back and let her rage on after that. Snooks took a back seat and saved her remarks for the end.

"I am sure Mrs Power is aware of your views now, Mrs Crooke, and I can assure you that I will be monitoring her work very closely from now on."

Wednesday 2nd November

Oz was back in the best of health today. Quite sprightly when it came to giving me the slip on the stairs. I cornered him at lunchtime and he attempted to hide behind his sandwiches.

I gave him my edited opinions of Mrs Crooke, Snooksey, the National Cur and spineless HODs who don't stick up for their staff. I virtually pushed him in the direction of Mrs Snooks with his comments on whether teachers are required to be identical in their teaching methods and whether one paranoid parent should be allowed to dictate the curriculum of the school.

Someone had obviously been talking to Snooks (probably an adviser - I knew they had some use) because the result was that she called me into her office and said that she wouldn't take the matter any further ... for the time being.

I was so relieved I left my ninth year marking in a carrier bag in the staffroom.

Thursday 3rd November

Oz looked even worse than usual when he told me that I had an adviser coming in to see my lessons this afternoon. They are of course supposed to give us rather more notice than this but as Oz put it - quoting Snooks apparently - those with nothing to hide have nothing to fear.

A lunchtime spent doing the ninth year marking I should have done last night. Mr Adviser turned out to be one of those people who are always sure you'll agree. "I am sure you'll agree we must set certain standards." (everyone agrees with that: nobody agrees on what the standards should be - which brings us back to square one.)

The lesson went very well because Tracy and Nick were both absent. I later discovered that Oz had spirited them away to do a spurious test.

The adviser quoted bits of the National Cur at me, and he was a bit miffed that I quoted back bits of the National Cur at him. A bit like old Methodists topping each other with Biblical quotations - and about as relevant to the education of real children. We parted on good terms and he disappeared into Oz's office.

Later I caught Oz and he pointed out that this would provide a very useful piece of evidence in my favour because in the nature of things the adviser's favourable report would go before the Board of Governors. He also said that having an adviser in with practically no notice did mean that there was less time to panic.

I got through half a bottle of sherry before James came home. A bit late to panic but I managed it anyway.

Friday 4th November

Finding it very hard to concentrate. I ought to be pleased that it looks as though Snooks' attempt to catch me out with an adviser backfired but I am not. It seems life is a constant battle and I just went down with shell-shock.