The maths master was eight feet tall.
He jabbed his clothes-prop arm at me
halfway across the classroom, stretched
his knobbly finger, shouted ‘You!
You’re only here one day in three,
and when you are you might as well
not be, for all the work you do!
What do you think you’re playing at?’
What did I think? I shrank into
my grubby blouse. Who did I think
I was, among these blazered boys,
these tidy girls in olive serge?
My green skirt wasn’t uniform:
clothes were on coupons, after all.
I’d get a gymslip – blue, not green –
for Redhill Grammar, some time soon
when we went home. But, just for now,
what did I think? I thought I was
betrayed. I thought of how I’d stood
an hour waiting for the bus
that morning, by a flooded field,
watching the grass-blades drift and sway
beneath the water like wet hair;
hoping for Mrs Johnson’s call:
‘Jean, are you there? The clock was wrong.
You’ve missed the bus.’ And back I’d run
to change my clothes, be Jean again,
play with the baby, carry pails
of water from the village tap,
go to the shop, eat toast and jam,
and then, if she could shake enough
pennies and farthings from her bag,
we might get to the pictures. But
the clock was fast, it seemed, not slow;
the bus arrived; and as I slid
anonymously into it
an elegant male prefect said
‘Let Fleur sit down, she’s got bad feet.’
I felt my impetigo scabs
blaze through my shoes. How did he know?