Diary of an Assistant Mistress (17 page)

I mentioned the story to George, who went to a single-sex public boarding school. I have never had George quiet for a whole lunch-break before. Oz then called me into his office and pointed out what the local press could make of the incident - "MALE STRIPPERS AND THE SEVENTH YEAR - TEACHER APPROVES." Just what I needed to feed my paranoia. In fact I think Mr Porter was just letting off steam. He is not the sort of parent who writes letters. They never stop to think how much of a nuisance they are being. A word to the teacher (if the matter is really that important) would usually solve a problem: a letter to the head usually just creates three more.

My tame Labour councillor rang me up after the meeting. It seems that there was a discussion of "staffing matters" at the governors' meeting. It involved moral turpitude but wasn't about me at all. Allegedly one of the French masters has been trying to get rather more than "la plume de ma tante" into some of his young charges. In the absence of reliable witnesses or a prosecution, they are in fact unable to proceed.

In this context, they were unable to take up my case which is rather tame by comparison. By next year it will be too late unless (she added sternly) I give them any more ammunition.

She then went through her usual list: would I like to sign a petition (no), join a Labour Party women's group (I have been expelled remember) or attend a lobby of parliament (maybe). She then departed from the usual and asked if I could join her for a drink. I pointed out that it was after closing time and she suggested her flat. I made an excuse and rang off.

It could fairly be said that James was drunk tonight. He had been to an office party - not THE office party, that comes later. He came home fairly late as one would expect.

In the middle of the night I awoke. I noticed James wasn't there. It is a single bed so I didn't have to search very far. Then I heard noises from behind the wardrobe. Like a flash, I put two and two together.

What are you up to?"

"Buggering about. Buggering about." same an indistinct voice from behind the wardrobe. It took a while to get him back to bed.

Saturday 3rd December

It was about 12 noon before James was in a fit state to listen to my news and about 12.20 before he was in a state to understand it. He almost immediately suggested we go out for a drink to celebrate, then thought better of the idea. He then suggested the cinema. "Night of the Blood Beast" was running alongside "Teenage Nymphos". It should be apparent which James wanted to see. I had to explain that half of my ninth years would be there before he realised it wasn't a suitable celebration.

In the end he agreed to do the shopping. He came back after three hours with about half of the things on the list, blaming me because the Co-op is no longer there and Safeways put everything in the wrong place (I know).

Sunday 4th December

A long lustful luxurious Sunday morning ... and a totally knackered Sunday afternoon. Just as well we have taken the plunge and cancelled the Sunday papers (again) I wouldn't have had the strength to lift them. According to the TV news the Sunday papers are full of the Royal scandal again so I am not missing much. No marking was done this day. I will have to make an excuse to Year 8 tomorrow.

Monday 5th December

So it begins again. A letter from a Mrs Greatorex complaining about the obscene language in "The Machine Gunners." Oz was full of apologies and took the responsibility of writing back himself. He may not be much cop at running a department - or a whelk stall for that matter - but he is on our side.

I finished the Year 8 marking during the lunch break but I had omitted to deal with the spellings in (naturally) the work of the Anita Greatorex (child of the parent who wrote the letter). I spotted it in time and marked it during the lesson.

I could give a tight-rope walker lessons.

Judo - pulled a muscle in my shoulder. And to think I do this to keep fit!

Tuesday 6th December

Helen sidled up to me after registration wanting a chat while I packed the rest of 7N (Q1) 3 off to Torquemada's riveting assembly celebrating the overthrow of Communism. The problem turned out to be a male member of staff who "kept looking up my skirt."

I tried to explain, as best I could, how Pat had put the problem to me:- They can't refuse to look at the pupils. If they look them in the eyes it can be intimidating (for either party) and if they look at anything lower down they are in serious trouble. I could hardly add that since the teacher in question was Auberon Cooper, females of the opposite gender were of no interest to him sexually in any case. I promised to have a word with him.

I decided to turn it into a joke when I spoke to him but he goes so "tightassed" (as George calls it for some reason: must be his public school knowledge) in my presence that I assume he was offended anyway.

Received my first Christmas card of the year, signed by George and Edie in Edie's handwriting. It was entirely unlike George's crude rugby-club style effort of last year with its picture of Santa doing I don't know exactly what (but I can have a good guess) to a reindeer. I will miss George's jokes: he is taking prospective fatherhood so seriously (while simultaneously trying to laugh it off).

Wednesday 7th December

Inservice Training day at the professional centre. Representative of SEAC almost torn limb from limb by InfoTec Co-ordinators when he announced that the National Cur for Technology is being changed yet again. Just when we were getting used to its impossible demands they come up with another set. These really are nonsense and involve every child in year 9 using a computer at the same time - there isn't a school in the country which can do it but, as he said, if we were serious about InfoTec it would be possible so that puts the ball rather into our court!

Of course it isn't his fault but neither the prime minister nor Secretary of State for Education were available so he was caught in the firing line.

He tried to defuse the situation by revealing three great truths:

1) Computers never wear out.

2) Computer software is free and also never wears out.

3) Computers are easy to use and nobody needs any training to use them.

When a straight man in the audience pointed out that these were not truths, he rejoined that they were the basis on which all Information Technology is funded. An audience in a better mood would have laughed. There was something very like a Monica Seles grunt from the ranks instead.

And while we're on grunts, James' latest idea was a little offputting. On the bedside table there were scissors, a can of shaving foam and a razor. Across the bed there was a towel. Like Ruskin (whose ideas of women were formed by Greek statues) he has decided that pubic hair is an abomination. More precisely, he wants me to acquire the 'little girl' look.

I teased him about his interest in little girls until he moderated his demands. He said he would give me "a short back and sides" which did not exactly appeal but I consented to a trim and wielded the scissors myself.

How anyone can find this exciting is beyond me, but not beyond James of course. To get my own back I liberally sprinkled parts of his anatomy with after shave lotion but of course he enjoyed that too.

Thursday 8th December

I reported back on my close encounter of the SEAC kind. I decided to take it straight to the Snooks. She was obscurely pleased at the discomfiture of the civil servant. More importantly I watched the idea dawn on her that it was just as well that she hadn't got rid of me because when the KS3 tests for InfoTec screw up (it makes me itch just to use the word after last night) next year there will have to be someone to blame.

She passed me over to Peter who conceded that I will need a separate room for InfoTec because as long as I share with Maths they have a perfect excuse for not doing their share of the IT curriculum. I may get one in two years time - as much use as a fishnet condom.

My year 8 class were doing limericks. It is unusual to come across one which is clearly the child's own work, and when I did it turned out to be ... "Mr Tomlinson caught me in French and pulled off my balls with a wrench, He sat on my belly And ate them with jelly And I couldn't think of a last line."

I gave him the option of destroying it on the spot or handing it over to George. He ate it. I think I am losing my grip.

Still, it won't harm George's macho image which has been tarnished by his pregnant father routine. Natural childbirth under water indeed - only the whale does that and I can imagine Edie getting touchy enough about her shape in months to come without that added simile.

Friday 9th December

I could hardly move for Christmas decorations in my room this morning, by lunchtime they had all been vandalised. Girls put them up, boys destroy them. I gave the usual heavy word to my form at PM registration and kept behind the boys who laughed but I am no nearer nailing the culprits or making them feel ashamed of what they have done.

Pat does a passable impression of the Spanish Inquisition for such occasions and he has the time to carry on until he has the culprits. I do not.

Saturday 10th December

The end of term approaches. The marking has begun to dry up. I scarcely knew what to do with myself today and got to work spring-cleaning the kitchen. The evening in the Red Lion with George and Edie saw George treating Edie with an exaggerated consideration so much at variance with his usual style that I can see it driving her mad if he keeps it up.

Edie confided in the loo that he has given up having sex. George! He hasn't been subjecting me to his amorous advances lately either - the usual hand on the knee, grope in the corridor: virtually nothing by George standards.

James, Edie and I managed to steer the conversation away from the

advantages of breast-feeding for whole minutes at a time.

Sunday 11th December

They have started delivering letters on a Sunday and on a suitably festive note, I received a little billet-doux from the Norbury police stating that I had been stopped on the wrong date in a road which does not exist (I looked it up) and that they had decided to take no action on this occasion.

They had decided to take no action on this occasion because I hadn't done anything. The cheek of it.

Monday 12th December

The end is nigh. Few classes are even pretending to work, except Clair's which are doing end-of-term grammar tests and loving it because it makes a change from pure and applied video-watching, which is all they are doing elsewhere.

I still have one or two InfoTec pupils to get through tests and they are not thanking me for it.

Drama lesson - spent at least 15 minutes persuading them to take off their shoes - they have the most appalling collection of verucae in the Western hemisphere and one boy who said it was too difficult to take off his shoes.

Tuesday 13th December

I think (very slowly) that I am too tired to think. My reason for thinking this is that I had considerable difficulty calling the register because I had suddenly forgotten how to pronounce the name of the first girl on the list - Chianna and didn't fancy risking the hilarity of my class. It is - as I very well remember - pronounced Key-enne but I was damned if I could remember that this morning.

Then I mislaid my glasses. I later found that I had unwisely deposited them on top of a television which Gavin had wheeled away into Clair's classroom without noticing. Of course I only found this out after a blind fumble all over the school bleating my incompetence to all and sundry. This was not as funny as the time when Pat lost one of his contact lenses and was crawling around on all fours before a riotous fifth year class when a governor walked in.

Wednesday 14th December

I have lost all feeling for Christmas. Even in an atheist home like ours there was a pagan Yuletide feeling. At the moment I just feel Christmas getting on my nerves.

Thursday 15th December

The school has a contract with a new firm of computer repair experts. I hope they are better than the last lot because Archie has started displaying everything in triplicate on his screen.

The departmental booze-up was a day early, apparently Olive takes exception to all of us opting out of the official celebration. Both George and Alistair made a bee-line for me. At least, I thought, Alistair wouldn't still want to talk about his vasectomy and George wouldn't be making a drunken pass at me.

Wrong on both counts. I know more about Alistair's reactions to being sterile than I do about the Lady of Shallott - and I wrote a thesis on Tennyson.

George 'rescued' me from the Scottish pseudo-eunuch to the tune of loud boasts about his own potency and offers to demonstrate. Then Tessa demonstrated her party trick with the condom and the cucumber and loudly persuaded everyone else to have a go. Where does she get so many cucumbers? Fortunately we were not interrupted by a small child handing in a late essay.

Friday 16th December

Last day of term. A day of mixed fortunes. Packed my form off to final assembly, rather them than me - I had to listen to the beloved Snooks at the grim end of term 'party' but more of that later.

Covered a French lesson. No work set. Chose something more or less at random out of a text book. Then got a rocket from the French department for not seeing the work - which was not actually in the room in question but in another room altogether.

English with excitable seventh years. "Can we play games?"

"Did your last teacher let you play games?"

"Oh yes!"

"Then you don't need to play games in this lesson too."

"She didn't let us really."

"Then neither will I."

Bah, humbug. Actually I do see Scrooge's point of view. Marley was dead, so why should anybody else have a good time?

Information Technology. "Can we play games?"

"Did your last teacher let you play games?"

"Half the time." said Becky with an arch expression. Word gets around.

Back to my room for final form period. My form had vanished. Not much I could do - still, they didn't get the satsumas I bought for them.