‘Mrs Malone? A chat please in my office?’
My class of twenty-five eight-year-olds are engrossed in ‘library time’ and I’m using the silence to catch up on marking some homework when the school principal, Miss Jean Brady, interrupts with a sentence that rises in pitch with every word, and a smile that tells me she’s about to lynch me for something I’ve done wrong again in her prissy, stuck-up prison – I mean, ‘school for rich kids’.
I nod to Paula, my classroom assistant, who has gone fifty shades of white at the very sight of our very own version of Maleficent and mouths to me ‘Good luck.’
Two more weeks to go until summer, I repeat inwardly as I follow the click of her heels down the corridor, and then make the swift turn left into her office. It’s more like something you’d see in an inner-city law firm than a south Dublin primary school with its highly polished floor, stripy rugs and splashes of greenery.
A framed photograph of a smiling boy and girl sit on her desk, which shows that maybe somewhere in her hollow make-up is a heart, but I don’t believe a witch like Brady could produce such innocence and beauty. In fact, I’d put money on it that the photo was cut from one of those cute French kiddies’ fashion catalogue and is all for show.
She sits down and exhales so exaggeratedly that I already want to attack her in a very violent manner. It’s so not my nature, but Miss Jean Brady brings out the dark side of me every time she invites me for ‘a chat’.
I wait, preparing my armour for another dig. What will it be this time? Could it be another reminder not to take a cup of tea or even a glass of water into the classroom for health and safety reasons? Or maybe she still has a problem with the way I sometimes don’t fully pronounce my ‘ings’? (Yes, seriously.) Or could it be that I’ve gone and deeply offended one of the eight-year-olds in my class by mispronouncing the surname Althorp again, saying it as it’s written and not ‘Awltrup’ as it should be? That was a biggie.
I wait, wincing inside but trying my best to be brave and thick-skinned.
‘James Leicester,’ she announces, as if I should salute or bow to attention at the sheer mention of a sprog of one of the wealthiest families in school.
‘Yes?’ I say. My face is a blank canvas of expectation. ‘He’s in my class? Lovely boy.’
I use the term lovely very loosely.
‘I had a call from his governess this morning and to be honest I’ve been trying to get a chance all morning to interrupt your class, but I’m at my wits’ end at this stage as to what to do or say to you this time,’ she says to me.
This time? Jesus, this must be bad. I try and think of what the hell I could have done this time. Did I swear in front of the little shit? Call him a brat to his face when I was thinking it? No, I definitely didn’t. I wait …
‘You do know that our children have after-school activities to further enhance the strong focus on core subjects we teach here during the day?’ she continues. She stares at me for a response.
Ah, Jesus, I know what she’s on about now. I feel my hands start to tremble, not with fear as they usually do when I’m sitting in this leather chair of doom, but with absolute frustration and bad temper at what’s coming.
I nod slowly. I’ve an urge to roll my eyes and sigh but I remain poker-faced as I’ve trained myself to do by now. This must be the fifth occasion I’ve been called into her office, but this is the most pathetic and insulting reason so far.
‘You brought a guitar into school yesterday?’ she says, raising one perfectly arched eyebrow above her black-rimmed glasses. ‘Is that correct? A guitar?’
I open and close my hands, feeling the fizz of adrenaline pump to my fingertips, and then I breathe through my nose, trying my best to control the string of expletives that are lining up on my tongue.
‘Do you have an answer to my question?’ she asks, drumming her shiny French manicured nails on the pretentious leather mouse mat in front of her. Everything in this hell hole palace is branded with the precious school logo, which is gold, of course, and says something in Latin that nobody even knows how to translate.
‘Yes, I did bring my guitar into school, Mrs Brady.’
‘Miss!’ she corrects me.
Whoops.
‘Yes, I did,’ I repeat, feeling my voice shake. I think of Jack’s words to me when we last discussed my job here. Don’t take any more shit, Charlotte. Not one more ounce of her nonsense. If that witch insults you again, stand up to her and tell her to shove her job where the sun doesn’t shine. You’re far too talented and smart to be treated like that. Don’t take it ever again, not for one more single day.
‘Why?’ she asks me, lifting a pen now to make some notes on her branded, lined block of paper. I have an overwhelming urge to tip the desk and its entire contents over and storm away, but I’d probably end up in jail for assault if I did, so I contain myself.
I breathe in and out, counting quickly the days I have to endure to get to the end of term when we’ll break up for summer and I’ll hold onto a full two months of pay from the pockets of the rich who send their silver-spoon-born offspring here. Ten more teaching days, that’s all I’d have to last if I can just hold back and not react to this nonsense.
‘I don’t have much more time to waste on this matter, so if you don’t mind, maybe you could answer me why?’ she says to me.
I twist my mouth, trying to decide on my reaction.
‘I thought it might be fun to sing some songs with the class,’ I try to explain. ‘We were talking about some items in the news and I thought The Beatles’ classic “Let it Be” might strike a chord, pardon the pun, and—’
‘The Beatles!’ she says, her head about to spin full circle on her narrow shoulders. ‘You thought it would be fun to sing The Beatles to eight-year-olds whose parents pay thousands of pounds a year towards your salary!’
I blink, trying desperately to know where to start to explain my reasoning. I’ve so much going through my head, but I can’t decide whether to go all soft and creative in my explanation, or whether to eff her off to the highest degree.
I choose soft and creative.
‘You know something, Miss Brady,’ I say to her in my best country accent, which I know to her ears sounds like nails running down a blackboard. ‘There’s nothing more beautiful than hearing children sing, be it in the morning, afternoon or evening. Did you know that children’s heartbeats synchronize when they sing together?’
She looks genuinely baffled at my reaction.
‘You sang another song, I believe?’ she says, not even listening to what I just said. ‘A song you made up yourself? I don’t even know the lyrics to The Beatles, never mind a song you decided to present to my children from your own mind, and I forbid you to take a decision like this behind my back in future!’
Soft and creative, soft and creative.
‘Singing makes people smile from the inside out, be it in the shower, in church, on a stage or in a classroom,’ I say to her. ‘It releases endorphins, it makes us move and dance, it creates a bond and it also creates wonderful memories. It—’
‘But it’s not your job here, Mrs Malone!’ she interrupts me. ‘We have a classically trained music teacher, a real-life composer from the orchestra who comes in once a week to tutor children whose parents have chosen to educate their children in this manner. It’s not up to you to sing The Beatles or some of your own nonsense to them! How dare you!’
Whoa, I can’t deny that hurts. Some of my own nonsense? I feel my lip tremble. I will not cry in front of her. No way.
But I don’t know what to say right now because I honestly can’t think of anything more uplifting than a teacher singing with their young pupils, and as I recall, they all seemed to enjoy it at the time, even that stiff little so-and-so James Leicester whose ‘governess’ reported me.
‘No more singing in class,’ she tells me, still writing on her horrible note paper. ‘It’s as simple as that. Leave any musical notions you may have off your job description, because it wasn’t on it in the first place.’
I won’t cry. I won’t.
‘But I thought I was … I thought I was their class teacher,’ I say, gulping back tears now. ‘Isn’t it my job to nurture the children here, to make them feel happy and relaxed in their everyday life, not just through following a strict curriculum? Am I wrong?’
I blink, hoping to disguise the pools that are forming in my eyes. Her words have hit me hard and she knows it.
‘No more singing in class,’ she repeats, as hard as a stone. I clasp my hands together, I twiddle my thumbs. I can feel my heart thumping and perspiration breaking through onto my navy blouse. My dress sense was also deemed inappropriate so I had to ‘tone it down’ and wear only black, navy or other suitably muted colours in case a flash of colour might poison the poor children’s minds.
‘Can I ask you a question before I go?’ I say, taking from her silence that she has now finished chastising me. She puts her pen down, pushes back her glasses and tilts her head to the side, waiting.
‘Go ahead,’ she says. ‘Quickly. I don’t have all day.’
I’ve wanted to ask her this for so long. I need to know the truth.
‘Why did you hire me in the first place?’ I ask her, looking her right in her steely grey eyes. ‘I genuinely would like to know, because all I’ve ever done here seems to be wrong in your eyes. I’d like to know how on earth you thought from my application and interview that I would fit into your establishment?’
I can’t even bring myself to call it a school. It’s like an institution, like a military operation, a horrible place that people actually pay for. I didn’t even think such ancient, right-wing places existed any more.
She puffs out a snigger and takes off her glasses.
‘Oh, I think you already know the answer to that question, Mrs Malone,’ she says to me, emphasizing my husband’s surname.
I knew it. I bloody knew I was hired because I’m a doctor’s wife and not because of my own credentials or what I could bring to the job. I’m humiliated, I’m insulted and I’m hurt right to my very bones.
I stand up tall, willing myself to hold my cool, but the adrenaline pumps within me, as does my pride, my intellect and everything I have worked for since I left Loughisland to study in Dublin, a world away from my family and the place I called home. I think of my father’s face the day I graduated, his cheeks pink with pride and a tear in his eye he couldn’t hide and didn’t care to.
I think of how my mother went round the whole village telling everyone who would listen that my name would be in the paper on the graduation list of honours and how she showed my photo to everyone who came into our modest home.
I think of how they saved their hard-earned cash to put me and my two siblings through a third-level education, of how much time and effort they put into Matthew’s music and of how my family is bursting with more talent and have more soul than the woman in front of me will ever know.
I think of how I got my first job in St Patrick’s and how the principal heaped praise on me at every turnaround, mostly for my music, and how I proud I was to finally make my mark in my family when I’d to follow in such fine footsteps as my big brother and sister.
How dare she hire me for a name I married in to? What an insult to me, my family and my whole being!
Then Jack’s words come back to me. I hear his supportive voice in my mind.
Tell her to shove her job where the sun doesn’t shine if she ever bullies you again, I mean it. You’re better than that. You’re Charlotte Taylor from Loughisland and I love you. Everyone loves you. Don’t ever let her bring you down.
She puts on her glasses, shooting me a glance of disdain.
‘You can go back to class now,’ she says, looking at her computer screen now. She lifts a file and stretches her arm out towards me, without looking my direction. ‘Can you give these to Rosemary at reception on your way past? Actually, never mind, I’ll do it myself.’
I clear my throat.
‘I haven’t finished,’ I say to her, my knees actually knocking under this horrible straight navy skirt I bought just to try and fit into her ridiculous, boring dress code.
‘I beg your pardon?’ she says, taking her glasses off again. Her eyes meet mine.
‘I said, I haven’t finished,’ I repeat.
Here I go.
‘You know, for such an educated woman, you sure do lack soul, as does this excuse for a school you are running,’ I tell her. ‘So, you can stuff your job, stuff your “ings” and your ridiculous standards and your skinny stiff upper lip, Miss Jean Brady!’
‘Mrs Malone!’
‘It’s Charlotte Taylor actually,’ I correct her. I never wanted to use my married name in my professional life and I won’t ever again. ‘You’ll be singing my songs one day when they’re on the radio and you’ll be telling people I used to teach here. Yes, used to because I’m out of here right now. Oh, and tell James Leicester’s glorified babysitter from me to go listen to some of The Beatles or even Guns N’ Roses and let her hair down. Even headbang a bit if she feels like it! She might even learn a thing or two! I’m out of here at long last. Go stick your job and your shit-hole of a school where the sun don’t shine! Goodbye!’
I turn on my prissy kitten heels and march out of her office, down the corridor and into my classroom where I hug Paula and wish her luck.
‘Where are you going?’ Paula asks as the children stare at me open-mouthed.
‘As far away from here as I can find,’ I tell her. Then I gather my belongings, say a quick farewell to the children (it’s not their fault their parents are assholes) and I make my way out to the car where I call Jack and put him on loudspeaker as I reverse out of my parking space and out through the gates of education hell.
‘I did it!’ I say to him, hearing the fear in his voice when he answers. We never call each other during the day unless it’s an emergency so I know I’ve probably frightened him to death. ‘I told the bitch where to go and I’ve left Holy Trinity once and for all.’
‘Jesus, Charlotte, did you really?’ he asks, his voice half trembling, half laughing. ‘Wow, that’s my girl! Don’t let anyone ever walk over you! I’ll see you when I get home and we’ll have a party. You can burn those stupid clothes they made you wear too. It’s their loss, Char!’
I turn down the car windows, turn up the radio and sing my heart out all the way home, thankful as ever that my darling husband understands me the way he does. I’m tired of pretending to be another me just to please everyone else. From now on, I’ll do what’s best for my soul and I’ll never, ever let any notions of pleasing others get in the way.