Mrs Devonshire sits alone in the staff room. She drinks a well earned cup of tea on a free period. She’s not used to having a free period. They normally work her like a plough. She likes to churn, it’s her way of making a difference.
Mrs Devonshire is 67. She has taught for 32 years. She tried going by her real name: Margaret, but it has never really sat well. She wishes Terrence, her husband would call her Mrs Devonshire but it has never really sat well with him.
Today, Mrs Devonshire has been conscripted to Our Lady of the Mount RC School to defend the literary realm against the invasion of Set 4 year 9, Set 2 Year 10 and set 3 year 7. She often forgets that the 7 is not their age but when you are 67 numbers are considered in terms of what’s left not what you have accumulated.
Mrs Devonshire looks at the wrinkles on her hands and remembers. She holds her tea affectionately, as though it’s a cure for an illness. ‘Supply’ is an important word she thought.
I said to Terrence this morning, ‘Don’t worry Terrence, they’re Catholics, they go to church, read the Catechism and aspire to wearing white.’
Terrence: he’s such a funny one, he just looked at me from over the top of the headline ‘School boy stabbed to death’. Yes, Mrs Devonshire, he poo pooed... whatever you say but those azaleas won’t plant themselves.
I assured him, that unless he was thinking of planting a money tree out there with his Civil Service pension then it would be ill advised for me not to go and work. It’s funny that... he thinks everything is so simple, that’s his problem I said, ‘Listen you may want to stay home and unleash ‘Gardener’s Weekly’s’ top tips but I don’t want to just wither incarcerated.’
I even used an allusion to that advert: ‘I can make a difference, I said.’
From a mouthful of toast and Bovril came some trite retort about working for forty years- but by that time I already had my glasses case entrenched in my purse and my copy of Doestoevsky and I was out the door with a spring in my hop.
It’s hilarious really.
I was wrong about them being Catholics. We had to say a prayer this morning (School policy). One young scamp who had a disposition of dirty underwear piped up and said. ‘Miss, do you believe in God.’ I told him that I thought it was important to believe in something. He asked me if I watched ‘The Bill’ last night he said that there was a gay that got ‘twatted.’ I politely requested that he not use pejorative terms. He protested that teachers always use words that nobody understands.
A young girl with pretty eyes then asked me how old I was. I said it was impolite to ask a lady’s age. She said that her Grandma was 46 and that I looked greyer than her. There was a titter around the room but I held my head high and said that her grandma may not be wise enough to have silver shading. The girl snarled and told me that the silver meant I was going to die soon, so, I asked her to leave the room and pray for enlightenment.
Later I heard she evacuated the school claiming that she ‘Couldn’t be bothered listening to an ‘Old bat.’ And that, ‘ I freaked her out with my freaky eyes and glasses that only had half lenses becuase I couldn’t afford to buy whole ones.
Thankfully, the Year 10 lesson passed without major incident. They were working on the power of advertisement. They had to design advertisements to sell a product of their choice. There were some quite splendid designs although David Tylson, a boy with some difficulties (I was told at the beginning of the day) produced a rather conceptual drawing of male contraception. With the the slogan of: ‘Let’s get Rubbery!’ I congratulated him on his catchy style but suggested that he may get in some trouble with the headmaster with that particular design. He assured me that it was the headmaster’s head that he was using as inspiration.
Year 7 were a bit more of a challenge after break. There was a great deal of chatter going on in the classroom. I quoted Nietzche saying ‘talking about oneself can be a means to conceal oneself.’ One boy, when I asked him to relinquish his name said that he was called, Wendy, much to the amusement of his peers.
I blame the parents. (Ensconced in a conversation with Terrence) I said, It’s the parents. A lot of them don’t read to their children. Although Terrence has never been one for the for the flourished incarnation of literature, he did nod in agreement, although he claimed that drugs and sex were to blame. He’s such a sensationalist. He has never really recovered from the girl from No. 24 telling him to ‘fuck off’ after he told her that he was going to shoot her terrier if it piddled on his Petunias once more. He is funny like that... and very protective of his garden.
Period 3, Mrs. Turnstal (the Head English) came and inquired as to how the day was going. I said that there was a lack of resources and that I couldn’t find a dictionary in the classroom. She quipped that the hairdressing class weren’t making dictionaries this week but the GCSE class are writing letters of complaint so maybe I could suggest that they write to the Head who as she put it: had the budget as tight as the pope’s underpants. I was a little aghast at her comment and wondered whether she went to the same church as Georgina, my Catholic friend. She’d be quite appalled. She regards the pope as quite a figure. She had German parents.
Still I was quite pleased that she offered me her Rye bread sandwich at lunch time. I’d forgotten my salad because Terrence got me in a tiz. The staff are very pleasant really. They were unsurprised about the usurping of Jane Hatfield from my registration class. Mr. Larson said he taught her mother. She was pregnant by sixteen and he reflected that he should have inserted more Bronte on the course to numb her hormones.
I’m glad I have a free straight after lunch. It gives me a chance to regroup. The Year 9 will be studying ‘Lord of the Flies’ this afternoon and I am told that there aren’t enough books to go around. Trapped on an island with a shortage of books and some tribal children. I will need to employ a strategy. Mrs Turnstal assured me that I could send any ‘of the little bastards’ to her class if they ‘played up’ I said I was sure that they would be fine but I thanked her for her support. She finished her Rye sandwich and marched with vigour in her eye to the head’s office. She claimed that he should try some teaching before announcing the third after school meeting this week. She was abounding with energy. I just had to admire her.
I hope Terrence got a nice bottle of chardonnay for supper. I could quite manage a tipple with a little Farmhouse cheddar. As D.H. Lawrence once said: ‘I will sit and wait for the bell.’
I hope this helps Y10 Good luck with yours. ed
