Miss Carter's War (23 page)

Having got their interest, she ventured to read them ‘Jabberwocky’, the poem from
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland
, as an illustration of play with words. It seemed much more accessible to them at this stage than Shakespeare. In fact they all wanted to have a go at reading it out loud, and fell about laughing at one another.

Over the following weeks she was to supply them all with pocket dictionaries, and after laboriously teaching them how to use them, she had competitions to see who could find a word first. She found other accessible ways of teaching them, after a while, risking dictation. She solved the problem of involving the less able pupils by making them pretend to be the teacher, and mark the higher-flyers’ spelling, using their trusty dictionaries, of course. Their margin notes of ‘idyert’ and ‘boloks’ were not perfect, but gradually their vocabulary and spelling improved, without them even knowing it.

After the first term, when Marguerite had gained their confidence, they began to write their own verse and stories, some of which were heartbreaking reflections of their home life. She even persuaded them, as she had her grammar-school girls, to learn a verse, or piece of prose, a week by heart. In the process they understood it, as well as felt rightly proud of their achievement when they were called upon to recite it to the class. And they were generous in their applause for classmates who could only manage a nursery rhyme, or the words of a popular song.

All this took time and trust. It was sometimes difficult to tolerate the disruptive elements, but by never raising her voice, and always being polite, she could control the troublemakers, who usually gave up for lack of attention. Those that didn’t she would talk to separately, to try and get to the bottom of their problem. Arthur Smith who could not sit down, but rambled about the room during lessons, proved to have an unmarried mother and four brothers and sisters, two of whom had already been taken into care. When school finished for the day he roamed the streets before curling up to sleep on the stairs of the block of flats in which he lived. Patricia Wendell, whom she discovered asleep on the classroom floor when she came into school at eight o’clock one morning, had broken a window to get in and sleep the night, to avoid being used in her mother’s amateur brothel.

It was not possible in this environment to follow Miss Fryer’s stricture against engaging with the children’s backgrounds. Mr Duane’s study was frequently full of parents and children coming for advice. A Parents’ Association started up, with participants impressed by how much the headmaster valued their opinions. Marguerite was appalled at how some of the children were living. On one visit to the home of a child she was concerned about, the elder brother came back with a young girl, and made love, loudly, in the next room, which distracted Marguerite, but left the mother and the child she was worried about completely unfazed.

One of the biggest culture shocks to Marguerite was the obscene language that poured out of some of the youngsters’ mouths. Variations of ‘cunt’ and ‘fuck’ were used as nouns, adjectives, adverbs and Marguerite would have liked to ban them, like Miss Farringdon’s ‘nice’ and ‘lovely’. Freddie Marshall barely uttered a sentence without one of these words. Marguerite asked to see his mother to discuss it. She turned up in a black satin dress, perky hat with a little veil, and red high heels. On her best behaviour, she expressed dismay that her child should be so rude in front of a teacher.

‘Jesus, the little bugger. I don’t know where he gets his fucking language from. You tan his arse, the little sod.’

Duane’s reaction was to start giving talks on sex to teach them the correct etymology.

Tony and Marguerite’s admiration for the headmaster grew as he gradually gained the confidence of even the most wayward children, but some of the staff were deeply unhappy about the way the school was being run. The school council, for instance, made up of a mixture of staff and pupils, was set up to resolve problems. To begin with it went well; gang battles were talked through, punishments jointly decided. But when one of the boys complained that teachers kept not turning up for playground duty, leaving it to prefects to supervise sometimes difficult situations, some of the staff complained later to Mr Duane that he had allowed them to be humiliated. They found it impossible to change their belief that they were always right, and that the pupils had to be tamed by unquestioned discipline; the ultimate sanctions being the cane and expulsion.

When Marguerite discovered that Sammy Bream couldn’t hold his pen properly, because of the three welts on his hands inflicted by Mr Fletcher’s cane, she stormed into the staff room to confront him.

‘Well, he’s a thieving little bastard. He stole cash out of the dinner-money tin. And it’s the second time.’

‘Oh, and did you cane him the first time?’

‘Yes, he’s got to learn a lesson.’

‘Well, it doesn’t seem to have worked. If he did it again. Do you know about his family?’

‘No, and I don’t care. I’m not a bloody social worker.’

Echoes of Miss Fryer.

‘Well, for your information, his father is in Pentonville for thieving, and his brother is in Borstal. So he’s had better teachers in robbery than he’s had here in other subjects. And what is more, being beaten is an everyday occurrence for him when his dad’s not in prison. The only thing that might stop him in his tracks would be kindness.’

For once the whole staff room became involved in an intense discussion about the pros and cons of corporal punishment. The new intake were vehement in their condemnation of using violence on children, and the old guard seemed to take notice. Marguerite could see that for many of them it was the first time they had questioned the casual cruelty that had become normal. The clip round the ear, the rapped knuckles with a ruler, the throwing of a book or chalk, the shaking and shouting into a youngster’s face. Tony told them that he was puzzled that some of the children looked behind them before jumping over the horse in the gym, until he discovered that, in their previous school, the teacher had walloped them on the bottom with a plimsoll to make them jump higher. For once a feeling of unity was apparent, and an uneasy agreement was reached to abolish the use of corporal punishment – at least for a trial period. A grateful Duane announced the decision to an astonished school in assembly. He caused even more amazement when he told them that henceforth no one would be expelled either, pointing out the responsibility this gave them for their own good behaviour, which should be adopted for its own sake, rather than out of fear.

These assemblies were enjoyable occasions. There were no prayers or hymns, just discussion of various topics. When the school was uneasy on the day a young man of twenty-one, Edwin Bush, was to be hanged up the road in Pentonville, Duane opened up a discussion on capital punishment, which ended in some of the pupils getting up a petition to abolish hanging, and taking it to No. 10 Downing Street. Sometimes there was music from the new orchestras and choirs. Following up her promise to tell her pupils more about Brahms and Liszt, Marguerite had the risky idea of getting Miss Allum to come and play for them. Thus it was that a sniggering school watched a little old lady in a lace frock come onto the platform, bow to them, and sit down at the piano, adjust the stool, and transform herself into a magician. She chose a piece of dazzling virtuosity by Liszt, and Marguerite was delighted to see them all open-mouthed and wide-eyed at the dramatic performance. They cheered Miss Allum to the rafters, and Mr Duane asked if any of them would like to play like that. A roar of approval resulted in Miss Allum being appointed to teach the piano. Her heart’s desire was achieved. Her shining talent had found a meaning.

After a couple of years, Marguerite and Tony were in their element. Every day was a challenge, each tiny success a triumph. Tony’s task was easier than Marguerite’s, as most of the children loved sport, and the facilities were good, especially for those more used to playing games in the street. He had a good relationship with the boys, whose background he empathised with, and the girls, as usual, all had crushes on him.

Marguerite started to take some of the older pupils to the theatre, an alien world to most of them, and Tony came along to help keep them under control. Stratford East was a favourite destination.
Oh, What a Lovely War!
caused a heated debate, and led easily into study of the war poets. Eventually she risked some Shakespeare. When she told them that they were going to see one of Britain’s greatest actors, Laurence Olivier, as Othello they were unimpressed. ‘Is he on the telly?’

As she and Tony shepherded this multicoloured, rowdy bunch of youngsters into the hallowed plush and gilt of the Old Vic Theatre, Marguerite sensed that the middle-class audience, reverently anticipating the monumental performance they had read about, were not best pleased.

There was quite a bit of fidgeting and whispering to begin with.

‘You didn’t say this Oliver bloke was black, miss.’

‘He’s not.’

‘Well, he walks like he is and talks like he is.’

‘That’s great acting, Joshua.’

‘But poor taste,’ muttered Tony.

She had outlined the plot beforehand, so even though the language was strange to them, they began to get involved. When Othello smothered Desdemona, Rita Oshenada shouted out, ‘Stop it, you bastard.’

There was a lot of shushing, and tutting, but the children had become too absorbed to care. At the end some of the girls were weeping audibly.

As they left one woman said loudly, ‘Guttersnipes.’

John Fernandez said, ‘Does she mean us?’

Marguerite reassured him.

‘Don’t worry, John, she’s just a silly prig.’

He looked shocked.

‘That’s not very nice language for a teacher. I don’t think you should talk like that, miss. You should set an example.’

She was bewildered. Tony was laughing behind the boy. She decided to let it pass and do some dictionary work the next day with the lad about the word ‘prig’.

That night over a drink in the saloon bar in the Carpenter’s Arms, she brought up the incident with Tony.

‘He thought you said “prick”.’

‘What are you talking about?’

‘He misheard you, and thought you said “prick”.’

‘Well, even if he did, what’s wrong with that?’

‘Don’t you know what it means?’

‘Yes of course. I can’t give the exact dictionary definition but it’s roughly to pierce, make a small hole.’

‘And a cock.’

‘I beg your pardon?’

‘A cock.’

‘A what?’

‘A man’s penis.’

A pause.

‘Don’t be ridiculous.’

Tony shook his head and roared with laughter.

‘You amaze me sometimes, Mags. After the life you’ve led, you still manage to be totally innocent, verging on naïve. You need to get out more. We have to do something about your love life, Lizzie Dripping, if only to improve your vocabulary.’

Chapter 23

Tony had the accusatory tone of the priests of her childhood.

‘Marguerite, listen, this is serious. Mark well my words. You are on the rocky road to forty.’

‘I know, yes, I confess. I’m sorry. So?’

His voice rang with righteous indignation.

‘So? So? Isn’t it obvious? You have to find a man.’

‘Amen,’ said Bob the landlord of the Carpenter’s Arms, getting into the spirit of the inquisition.

Marguerite retaliated, ‘That’s easy to say, but where? And when? All I meet are the teachers at school.’

‘Well, what about one of them?’ said Bob.

‘The only ones I could fall in love with are Tony and the headmaster, and they are both unavailable.’

‘You don’t have to be “in love”.’ Tony was exasperated. ‘Not nowadays. This is the Swinging ’60s. Sex is fun. Everything’s changed. Get with-it.’

‘I’m no good at that. I have to be in love.’

‘What about the one-night stand you told me about?’

‘That was different. It was wartime and we both thought we would die. And anyway, I did love him. For that one night. Very much.’

They were eating bread and cheese and pickled onions and gherkins. After Bob had rung the hand bell and bellowed, ‘Time, gentlemen, please,’ and chivvied the stragglers out with ‘Come on, you lot, let’s be ’avin’ you’, he joined them at the table for a beer.

Tony entreated him and his wife Florrie, ‘Don’t you think Mags should have a boyfriend?’

Florrie shouted across, ‘Of course she should – lovely girl like her. She works too bloody hard, that’s the trouble. She never gets to meet anyone. Like me. That’s why I’m stuck with him. One day I’ll go off with old Len.’

Len came in at the afternoon opening hour and stayed till ‘time’ every day, nursing a stout and speaking to no one.

Marguerite said, ‘You’ll have to fight me for him. He’s my only hope.’

With good publicans’ tact, neither of them ever broached the subject of the relationship between Marguerite and Tony. Florrie was now vigorously wiping down the counter. She stopped in her task when Marguerite said, ‘It’s no good. I’m destined to be an old maid.’

Florrie came over to the table. ‘Oh don’t say that, duck. You need love in your life. Everyone does. And what about kiddies?’