Miss Carter's War (21 page)
Authors: Sheila Hancock
‘You could, you could—’
‘No. But, Marguerite—’
‘Yes?’
‘I will always love you. Till the day I die . . .’
‘Well . . .’
But he turns, blows a kiss over his shoulder and is lost in the crowd.
Marguerite leapt to her feet.
‘I’m coming too.’
‘What?’
‘It sounds exciting. I’m in a rut here. I want to “follow my dream”. A fresh start. That’s what I need.’
Yes, that was exactly what she needed. To move on. Move on. With Tony.
Her idealism came gushing back.
‘Yes, Tony, a fresh start. Wonderful new things! We will change the rotten world after all!’
Tony stroked her hair and kissed the top of her head. He laughed, but he sounded solemn.
‘Take it easy now, Lizzie Dripping. Take it easy.’
Marguerite’s walk, in the drizzling rain, from the Angel tube station to Risinghill Street for her interview at the new comprehensive, was not as uplifting as her approach to Dartford County Grammar School for Girls on her first day as a teacher eleven years ago. But her eager anticipation was, if anything, more fierce than it had been then. The grimy tenements, bomb sites still not cleared, the chaotic Chapel Street market with its rotting waste, starving dogs and raucous shouts were all grist to her renovated reforming mill. The queue outside the pie and mash and jellied eel shop was, to her, made up of salt-of-the-earth Londoners, and she laughed as they whistled when she clacked by on her high heels, thinking: With a bit of luck, I’ll soon be one of you.
Standing in front of a ramshackle pub at the top of the market she looked across the busy road to Risinghill Street on the other side. It was not an imposing sight. There were several reeling winos outside the church on the corner, opposite which was a huge blackened wall of a decaying warehouse, and beyond a group of wretched slum houses. Dodging the heavy lorries, she crossed to look closer at her possible future workplace. A pinched face was staring out of a broken window in one of the houses. Marguerite smiled up at the woman.
‘Piss off,’ the face mouthed.
The short road terminated in a high wire fence, inside which was a building site. It did not look as if it would be ready to house two thousand children in six months’ time, but Marguerite was moved to see this phoenix rising from the ashes of all the dereliction. A surly doorkeeper led her across the rubble to a hut near the entrance. A tap would not be heard over the banging and clanking of the builders, so Marguerite tentatively opened the door. Sitting at a desk, head in hands, a picture of despair, was Miss Scott, late of the secondary modern. Suddenly aware of Marguerite, she leapt to her feet, immaculate as ever, with her black hair now in a pageboy style and wearing a two-piece navy suit with a white blouse. She shook Marguerite’s hand warmly.
‘Oh heavens, am I glad to see you. Forgive me, you caught me off guard. I’m helping the headmaster with the staffing. I have had a dispiriting morning interviewing people who believe that “six of the best” is a “jolly good thing” and “never did me any harm”. Or worse, men wearing grubby jeans, saying they took up teaching because they didn’t know what else to do. Lord, there is some rubbish in our profession.’
Marguerite was startled. At Dartford some teachers were obviously more able than others but none could be categorised as ‘rubbish’. As for the cane, though it was legal to thrash children, the subject had never even been discussed.
Miss Scott continued to pour out her frustration.
‘We are going to need high-calibre teachers here. It’s going to be a mighty struggle to make it work. We will be an unwilling amalgamation of four different, and I do mean different, schools, plus the intake from local primaries. We’ll have one group in their final year, who are not going to feel any loyalty to the new school. Plus – and this is the saddest thing for me – there are good grammars and posh schools in the area which will have creamed off the top stream, therefore our share of high-flyers will be less than one per cent, so it is not truly a comprehensive. Most pupils will be ordinary working-class kids but we’ll have ninety on probation, many on the books of the NSPCC, some deemed educationally subnormal and a third immigrants with little or no knowledge of English. Would you like to sit down?’
‘Perhaps I’d better.’
‘There’s more.’
‘Oh really?’
‘The building is a disaster. Four exits for them to escape, seven playgrounds, several dining rooms, perfect in every way for bunking off and causing mischief. Michael Duane, our head, is doing his best to remedy some of this, which is why he’s not here. He is giving them a belated input from someone who will actually use this architectural folly. We have been forced to take on two of the heads and a lot of the staff of the previous four schools, who will be reluctantly answerable to Mike, who doesn’t believe in the cane or expelling people, whereas they have always ruled with a rod of iron – literally in some cases, except that the rod was made of wood. Several of the children have fathers in Pentonville Prison up the road, and a few of the mothers operate as prostitutes.’
‘No competition to Cheltenham Ladies’ College then?’
‘Not really no. They’re single sex.’
Marguerite laughed.
‘Of course, silly me.’
‘We’re mixed. In every sense of the word. A thoroughly mixed bag. Two of the four schools have been single sex up to now, so imagine the fun and games when the boys and girls are let loose.’
Miss Scott looked anxiously at Marguerite.
‘Well, what do you think?’
‘I’m thinking that you personally seem to have jumped out of the frying pan into the fire.’
‘No, there’s one big advantage—’
‘What’s that?’
‘A visionary, dedicated, remarkable headmaster.’
On cue a tall man in paint-bespattered corduroys and crew-necked sweater burst into the shed.
‘Trying to get rid of some of the grey walls,’ he said, indicating his stained yellow hands. ‘Diana told me about you. I hope you’ll join us. Please excuse me. I have to change into my respectable headmaster’s suit and tie. I have a governor coming. I’ll change in the builders’ Elsan toilet. It’s going to be thrilling. Has Diana asked you about being head of house? And about doing French as well as English? Do become part of our family. We – they – need you.’
Grabbing a crumpled dark suit from a hanger he rushed out.
‘Is that—?’
‘Yes, that’s Michael Duane. He’s apt to jump the gun, I’m afraid. I was going to build up to it tactfully.’
Marguerite raised an eyebrow.
‘Well, no, I haven’t actually made a very good job of that, have I? But you see I am passionate about what we’re trying to do here, and I’m having trouble finding teachers who are prepared to rise to the challenge. We are dividing the school into houses so the pupils have a smaller group to relate to in this vast place. You would be ideal as a head of house.’
‘Just a minute, just a minute. You know nothing about me—’
‘I saw you handle my lost souls at the secondary modern. You cared, you listened, you reacted truthfully and spontaneously. That is the approach we need here. We have to throw away our teaching rule books and be in each scary moment. Mike needs people who are prepared to look at new ways of tackling the problems in an area like this. Maybe it is a consequence of the war, or government policies, but it’s a changing world, and there are children that need our help. Whatever happens it will be an adventure, and believe me, we have an inspirational leader. Go on, Marguerite – you’re not needed at that splendid grammar school. You are here.’
A pause.
‘I’ll hand in my notice on Monday.’
Miss Fryer expressed regret at Marguerite’s decision.
‘I had hoped you would apply for the headship here when I retire. I have already recommended you.’
Marguerite was taken aback. The conflicts they had had over the years had not led her to believe that Miss Fryer would entrust her beloved school to someone like her.
‘I realise a new broom is necessary. But wielded by someone I can trust. Whose first concern is the girls, not some risky experiment. We live in dangerous times. This talk of a birth pill, the obsession with television and its casual violence and vulgarity, the lack of deference. I know you have a vision for the future of education, but please be careful, Miss Carter. Be careful with the young.’
‘I will, Miss Fryer. I respect your approach. You have taught me so much.’
Miss Fryer smiled.
‘That’s kind of you. I realise I’m an old fuddy-duddy, but I seriously believe if inhibitions are broken down too suddenly, too drastically, it is very destructive for some, especially the children. Evolution is better than revolution in my book. I hope you enjoy your final term with us.’
She took Marguerite’s hand and held it in both of hers.
‘The school will miss you, Miss Carter. And so will I.’
‘What the hell have I done?’
Marguerite and Tony crouched, sharing a cigarette in the rabbitry.
‘I could be a headmistress of a fine school, in a nice environment, with lovely pupils. Instead I’m going to work myself to death, in a slum, with two thousand juvenile delinquents.’
‘Nonsense. You can’t be headmistress of a grammar school. Not with your hair.’
‘I could wear it in a bun.’
‘It’s the colour, you’ll have to wait till it goes grey.’
‘Which will be pretty soon when I’m teaching ninety kids on probation for heaven knows what crimes.’
‘Then there’s the boobs and the wiggle. Much more suitable for Islington. This is London we’re talking about here. Think – you’ll be living in the centre of where it’s all happening.’
‘All what?’
‘Well, I’m not sure. But we’ll find out.’
‘In Islington? Didn’t look like much happening, except poverty and misery.’
Tony said sharply, ‘Marguerite, stop it. It’s your decision to do this.’ He put his arm round her. ‘This is what we believe in. We made a vow “not to do nothing”. Remember?’
Her voice sounded shaky.
‘Oh yes. Sorry, for a moment I forgot I was going to change the world.’
‘And we will. Or at least a little bit of it. Buck up, Marguerite, this isn’t like you. I’m usually trying to control your blind optimism.’
‘I’m scared, Tony. I may not be any good.’
‘Nonsense. You’re a brilliant teacher and I’ll hold your hand, OK?’
‘OK.’
‘Right, let’s put the fag out before we suffocate these bunnies. We’ll go and look for digs tomorrow.’
‘Together?’
He shook his head.
‘No, pet. If we share, our gentleman callers would be put off, and we don’t want that, do we?’
After much scanning of the small ads and traipsing around the area near the school, Marguerite found a room, a short walk away, in King’s Cross Road. It was above a spit-and-sawdust pub called the Carpenter’s Arms. The landlord and landlady, Bob and Florrie, with whom she would share the kitchen and bathroom, were a cheerful couple. Her room was light and airy and overlooked the back yard, under which ran the trains from King’s Cross Station, making all the glasses in the bar rattle. To reach the door to the stairs leading to the flat she had to run the gauntlet of the tough guys and old regular soaks in the public bar; the few women customers went into the more respectable saloon bar, or the little nook at the back traditionally kept for ladies only, to sip their port-and-lemons and gossip in peace. With its large speckled mirrors, colourful tiled walls, converted glass gas lamps and marble-topped tables, the pub was a picture of faded Edwardian splendour and Marguerite fell in love with it. That it was shabby was in its favour. It would not have seemed right to live in luxury while many of her future pupils lived in squalor. She gave the landlord Bob a retainer and he was happy to keep the room free till she needed it. People were not queuing up to occupy it anyway, he admitted.
Tony settled for the YMCA hostel in Great Russell Street. He said he needed the gym to keep fit, and doubtless the pool, where it was the rule to swim naked, was an added attraction.
‘Naked?’
‘Yes of course. It’s to stop bits of cloth from the costumes getting into the filtration system.’
‘Of course it is.’
‘And it’s very Christian and lovely so don’t look at me like that. I’ll be very happy there.’
‘I’m sure you will.’
As their final term drew to an end Marguerite and Tony were made aware of how well liked they were. Even Miss Farringdon told them that they were insane to enter the savage territory of a comprehensive, but she wished them God speed on their voyage. There were farewell parties with staff and girls, and presents, and tears.
The last party was given by Mrs Schneider. A Sunday lunch of roast chicken, followed by apple crumble and custard, complemented by wine provided by Marguerite and Tony. Miss Allum wore the same special-occasion lace frock that had graced the Coronation party, there not having been another event in the subsequent seven years of her life to warrant a new purchase. Mr Humphreys, too, seemed to be sporting the same outfit, but Marguerite noticed, with some relief, that either the trousers were new, or Mrs Schneider had persuaded him to have a zip inserted to replace the errant fly button. Moira was resplendent in a skin-tight crimson-silk dress created from a Vogue pattern, with nails and lips to match. Mr Humphreys had to sit down when she made her entrance.