Diary of an Assistant Mistress (18 page)

Bus duty. The one day in the year it is worth doing to avoid the end of term social. The accursed buses turned up on time and so off I trotted to the funny hats and platitudinous speeches in the staffroom.

The blessed Olive was in full flight and the PE staff were actually applauding - a Nuremberg rally with sandwiches. I drank too much. There is nothing else to do.

In previous years we have organised a surreptitious game of word bingo with Olive's speech. My card read something like

ÚÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÂÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÂÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÂÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ¿ ³ AMBITION ³ CURRICULUM ³ STANDARDS ³ AARDVARK³ ÃÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÅÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÅÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÅÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ´ ³ TRADITIONS³ TECHNOLOGICAL ³ ACHIEVEMENTS ³ PARENTS ³ ÃÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÅÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÅÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÅÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ´ ³ CUP-CAKES ³ HARD WORK ³ ECOLOGY ³ PREVIOUS³ ÃÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÅÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÅÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÅÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄ´ ³ TEACHING ³ CLASSROOM ³ BEHAVIOUR ³ SCHOOL ³ ÀÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÁÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÁÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÁÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÄÙ

and if she had only mentioned "teaching" once, I would have won a bottle of whisky. I don't drink the stuff, but I know a man who does.

Saturday 17th December

Two carrier-bags full of First (ie Seventh) year projects and a neat pile of texts to be read for next year sit on the armchair and provide a life-line back to work for a holiday which can be very long indeed.

The full horror of the holiday hasn't hit me yet, it is just like another weekend, except for the excess of satsumas and the unusual heaviness of the shopping.

Our paper boy, Larry, has delivered the Daily Telegraph again, the cat has started to pay attention to the marking and James is playing with the car: he spends more time playing with our (working) Sierra than he ever did on the (entirely otherwise and to the contrary) Skoda. My old mother always used to say, "If it ain't broke, don't fix it."

My mother! Panic! No it's Tuesday she comes. I wonder if I've got enough tinned pears (no).

Sunday 18th December

I think there's a lot to be said for the pathetic fallacy. This weather - constant rain interspersed with drizzle and mist - is getting on my wick. James says it is the unavoidable prospect of mum for Christmas and I suspect he's right.

I spent the day making assurance doubly sure by supervising while James tidied up - one can't be too careful. Also made a start on reading Two Noble Kinsmen, which seems to be the least attractive of my holiday tasks. "Worst first," we used to say at school - but that was a strategy for getting through school dinners not the festive season.

Of course I would love Christmas if we had children and we are currently taking bets on how long it will take my mother to make that

particular observation.

Monday 19th December

In desperation, we sidled off to the Red Lion at lunchtime. Naturally, none of our friends was there because they are celebrating the great family occasion. The bar was crowded out to the window-ledges and one innovation - the landlord has introduced a stripper. I sat and watched James watching her until he lapsed into a trance and I pinched his drink.

Tuesday 20th December

Gatport Airwick. 1400: The flight from Aberdeen has been delayed due to adverse weather conditions. ETA revised to 1600

1500 ETA revised to 1800

1600 ETA removed from the board altogether

1601 Announcement over the Tannoy which I cannot understand.

1700 Still no ETA

1800 Flight has been delayed because they are waiting for spares.

2000 ETA 2400

2200 ETA 0100

2300 Announcement over tannoy that the plane has now left Aberdeen

2301 Announcement over Tannoy that the plane has not left Aberdeen

2302 Announcemnt over Tannoy that the plane has not left Aberdeen

2302 ETA 0130

Sleep. James wakes me up to say that the flight has been delayed until next Tuesday. A mixture of emotions rapidly vanish from my face as I realise my mother is standing at his elbow grinning like a Cheshire cat. It is 2.00 in the morning and she looks as fresh as a daisy - why does she evoke such phrases? After all she taught me to avoid clich‚s like the plague.

Wednesday 21st December

In the end we didn't sleep at all. Mum had slept on the plane and insisted that we should go to bed because she didn't want to be any bother: she could just get herself a cup of tea and maybe vacuum a carpet or two while we had a nice rest.

She has never approved of "common-law wives, kept women or mistresses," and it must be something of a problem to her that both of her daughters fall into this category. Of course I keep protesting that I am not a kept woman, indeed when James lost his job he was a kept man but it is all water off a duck's back.

Of course James doesn't help matters by continually calling her Mrs MacGregor: it is in fact her name and he protests that he has to call her something - but surely not so often.

Other people find it a rather incongruous name since she is still a strikingly handsome Eurasian woman and not at all like a MacGregor, any more than my father was. I don't know what a Power is supposed to look like - a motorbike I expect.

Thursday 22nd December

Woke up with a sore throat.

Oh my God, I'm getting a cold!

Oh my God, I'll get laryngitis

Oh my God, I'm turning into a hypochondriac. Where are the hypochondria pills?

I cannot bear having someone else in the flat even - especially - mum. I would feel free to indulge my sore throat, spend the day in bed drinking Ovaltine and reading "The Handmaid's Tale" but instead I have to rush about getting lunch. Of course she doesn't want to be any bother mind you but my sister Nadine cooked her a lovely Chicken Kiev when she stayed with them - so radioactive pullet it is.

I was half way through preparing this dish when I remembered that mum was a vegetarian. I mentioned this to her and she said that she hadn't wanted to upset Nadine after she had gone to so much trouble with the lovely Chicken Kiev, although she couldn't herself 'eat the Chicken bit.'

Friday 23rd November

Mum has started looking at my marking. Of course she doesn't like to comment about the standards of children's work nowadays. She knows that other people comment about the standards of work of children but she always tells them that her daughter is a teacher.

After the key words "children" and "my daughter" it was but a breath away to how happy Nadine was with her kids (Nadine tells a very different story actually, mum) and how a home seems incomplete without infants muling and puking around the place.

And so to lunch.

Saturday 24th December

All at a bit of a loose end because we are not busily wrapping up presents for the dear little children. Granny rang Nadine to find that her dear little ones are driving her up the wall and she's just found that the batteries in the Thunderblade festive helicopter gunship have leaked acid all over the internal workings.

The recording of the Madonna concert which James insisted on watching shocked the living daylights out of mum, who spent most of the evening drinking sherry and not looking at all shocked. She supposed that people enjoyed this sort of thing nowadays and remarked brightly that it would have been quite shocking to a long list of her acquaintances in the Co-op women's guild in Aberdeen.

The women's guild still survives in Aberdeen but only just. Their

traditional anthem is "Stand up and Fight" but most of them can't even stand up, let alone fight. When mum dies, it will die too.

This got her on to the subject of her testamentary dispositions and she informed us yet again that she has already arranged her funeral with the Co-op undertakers. James asked if they gave stamps.

Sunday 25th December

Yule. Or 'Yule regret this in the morning' as dad never failed to say. I can remember that absolute bastard Father Christmas failing to give me any presents one year. I woke up, felt all over the bed, looked under the bed, searched the room and stormed downstairs in tears.

Mum and dad hadn't been to bed yet and were sitting chatting in the comfortable haze of dad's cigarette smoke with two stockings bulging with presents on the table. I was only glad mum and dad were making everything right after Santa had let me down so badly.

Although mum was a vegetarian, dad would have kept an abattoir in business, so we always had a massive turkey on Christmas day and mum always managed to 'eat the turkey bit.'

I actually don't like turkey, James is indifferent to it. So guess what we had for lunch.

And then "Where Eagles Dare" again.

Monday 26th December

Samovar is staggering around full of off-cuts of turkey, James is wondering out loud whether Mrs MacGregor would like to spend Hogmanay back in Aberdeen and when the next flight will be, I am settling down to read "Information Technology in the Middle Years of Schooling".

Lunch saw off the last of the tinned pears.

Mum announced she was going home tomorrow and Samovar threw up over the book I was reading.

Tuesday 27th December

"There really was no need to see me off."

"We had to make sure you got on the plane." James smiled, and carried on smiling when the trolley ran over his foot.

Now the flat seems empty without mum. No pleasing some people.

Wednesday 28th December

Marking and profiles.James is watching "The Guns of Navaronne."

Thursday 29th December

Profiles and marking. James is watching "The Dogs of War."

Friday 30th December

Profiles and marking. James is watching "Spanking Teenagers." I join him and we criticise the plot.

Saturday 31st December

George and Edie, Oz and Tessa came round to see the old year out. Nobody likes to think about seeing the new year in these days: it seems only too likely to bring more of the same - war, intolerance and circulars from the DFE.

Edie told George to belt up every time he raised a vaguely paternal topic, so we only spent two hours discussing the advantages of mother's milk and the correct method of episiotomy. It would have made my day complete if we had had Alistair along to relive the magic moments of his vasectomy for us. And I said so.

We resemble a trio of comfortable happily married couples - even if only George and Edie are actually married. Naturally we got around to the shortcomings of the youth of today. Where are the radicals? Why isn't there anyone out on the streets opposing the war?

["Would you have them carry pictures of Saddam or Slovodan Milosovic?" asked Edie, but hers was the only discordant note. ]

It turned out all of us, except Edie, had been in Grosvenor Square in 1968, Oz with the Young Liberal "Red Guards", James and I with the Militant tendency, Tessa was just there and of course George actually organised the whole thing and that upstart Tariq Ali had just claimed the credit!

Comfortable, middle aged and slightly out of our skulls, we calmly listened while Oz unrolled his prediction of a fascist Europe, James, his of a Socialist one and Samovar urinated on the Christmas tree lights and they went out.

Appendix 1 Dramatis Personae