r art of my job as Head of Year Six was to create a ‘happy work climate’. Unfortunately, in most staffrooms the work climate is damp with high wind approaching. Having to check the teacher roster first thing didn’t do much to brighten the day. If there were any absences I had to assign the duties to other disgruntled staff members. Teachers break into two groups — the Sneerers and the Okayers. The Chalk and Talk teachers nearly always fall into the sighing and sneering d suppose so’ category.
But Perdita, her smile cement-rendered onto her face, now had a permanent excuse, d would, but I’m just soooo busy going over your work,’ she said today, in answer to my request to cover playground duty at break, d know it’s a little embarrassing to have your classwork checked by a fellow member of staff, but Claude — Mr Scroope — did insist we make it inspection-proof. And it’s best to keep the old boy happy. As I’m a people person. I’m willing to help you out.’ She gave a long-suffering sigh.
The minging staffroom, with its rusting chrome sink and threadbare armchairs, is situated directly behind the children’s dining hall. Positioned as it is at the back of the cafeteria, it’s nicknamed ‘the Bacteria’. Well, the Bacteria was now buzzing with activity as teachers milled about making last-minute cups of tea and coffee before the bell rang. Perdita’s reply had been loud enough to ensure maximum overhearing. The graveyard of apple cores in the cluttered ashtrays, the grape-cluster skeletons, the glove of banana peel on the floor and being belittled in front of my colleagues — this must be why I became a teacher. 1 just couldn’t resist the glamour of it all.
I drank in air languid with kids’ wet shoes and marmite sandwiches, feigned a shrug, then diverted the curiosity of the other teachers by sharing my latest batch of biology homework. 'Benign is what you can’t wait to be when you’re eight,’ I read aloud, to mild tittering.
But inside I was seething. I had begged Mr Scroope to reconsider, but obsessed with the impending inspection, he just kept repeating his order, like a Dalek. ‘The Inspectors are coming. Perdita must supervise your lessons. The Inspectors are coming.’
And so my free time after school was spent in my rival’s classroom which she had cluttered with cuddly toys, gonks, ornamental flowers and ‘amusing’ signs of the type sold in shops called Bitz or Nick nacks. Red pen in hand and dotting all her Fs with smiley faces, she excised all the frivolity from my class notes, replacing fun phrases with obfuscatory jargon about ‘building team commitment to action’ and ‘clarifying individual roles and responsibilities’. How deftly this Hackademic turned my simply worded educational aims ‘meeting yesterday’s challenges tomorrow’ into meaningless drivel about aiming to ‘grow skills
in speedy problem-solving ideas’ and ‘barrier breakdowns’. Whatever the hell that meant. The woman’s course notes were so convoluted that I would just grasp the end of one sentence, when the other end would wriggle away like a slippery leg of an octopus. It was like being trapped in an elevator with a Seventh Day Adventist recruitment officer.
Fed up, I tried to get out of going over my science notes. ‘Don’t worry,’ I told Perdita gaily. ‘I’m planning a more practical than theoretical approach. I’m taking my class on an excursion to the Science Museum.’
Perdita’s professional manner cooled a few degrees. ‘But the Science Museum told me all their school slots are taken. I rang last week.’
‘Oh, well, I booked up a year ago.’ And with a perky flutter of my fingers, I was gone. As to the work climate? Let’s just say I felt a distinct frost in the air.
But half an hour later, things got very hot indeed. Mainly under my collar.
‘I’m afraid I’m declining your request for the Science Museum excursion,’ the Headmaster told me, his large lips slapping together in a wet percussion of rebukes. I’d been summoned yet again to his office.
‘It’s been brought to my attention that during the last school trip you organized to London Zoo, as the children were leaving for the bus, you suggested they sprint towards the parking lot yelling, “Run for your lives! They’re loose!” It has been reported to me that this so startled the tourists that it started a small stampede. Is this an accurate description of said incident, Ms O’Carroll?’
My Headmaster’s manner is so severe that he causes the people around him to squirm and blurt things nervously.
‘Um, well, um . . Come on, I told myself. Even a turtle has to stick its neck out to get anywhere. The kids were really tired and I was just trying to wake them up.’ I tried to keep calm by listing all the jobs that would be worse. A judge in Baghdad, say. An official car-starter for a Mafia boss. Animal faecal identification expert. Defroster of Walt Disney’s head. Food taster for Kim Il-sung. ‘It was funny at the time,’ I concluded, timidly.
‘And do you find it funny, how badly this reflects on my schooE’
All it reflected on was the sneaky nature of my fellow teacher. Perdita had been the only other staff member on the zoo excursion that day.
‘Oh, hello. I’m not interrupting anything, am IV came her lilting voice from the doorway. She placed a cup of strong tea on the boss’s desk. ‘Thought you might need a little pick-me-up.’ Honestly, this woman could network at a funeral. ‘Can I get you anything, CassieP All this was said through the most courteous of smiles.
Yeah, you could take this knife out of my back. ‘No, thanks.’
I was beginning to think that if Perdita were a dog, I was her tree. I told myself not to sink to her level, as it was, after all, such a long bloody way down. Little did I know that I was about to fall flat on my face anyway . . .
‘Well, it gives new meaning to “personal training”,’ was my only comment when Jazz, our resident sausage jockey, pointed out her newest ride after school later that day. Hannah, Jazz and I were at the Regents Park Tennis School, taking turns to half-heartedly knock a few balls at each other, while Jamie and Jenny had their lessons on nearby courts.
‘Oy veh. Jasmine,’ snapped Hannah, having examined the
coach in question through her opera glasses. Tn general I think it’s best not to shag someone you could have given birth to.’
‘As I see it, any male of legal age on the planet the same time as me, is up for grabs, girls.’
Hannah fiddled with the lenses then fixed the opera glass to my eye. A muscled Adonis jumped into the frame. ‘Yowzah! He’s gorgeous. Jazz. I think I’ll shop you to Social Services so that I can have him! So, where do you do itV I probed, looking around voyeuristically. Tn the clubhouse?’
‘Of course not. We do it at his house.’ Jazz dropped onto the lawn to re-lace her tennis shoes. ‘He’s um . . . sharing a place with some old friends of his.’
‘You mean his parentst You shtup him at his parents’ house?’ Hannah remonstrated. ‘That’s pathetic, dah-ling. And does the tennis coach know about all your other men?’
‘No. And don’t tell him! He’s a little naiVe. He only slept with me because I told him it was my first time, you know, with someone else besides my husband. Well, it was my first time that dayl’
My laugh died in my throat as I glanced across the courts.
‘Fuck a duck.’
‘It’s about the only thing she hasn’t.’ Hannah’s sarcasm was cut short by my frantic finger-pointing and arm-waving, because there, crossing the courts, was Bianca, in an immaculate white tennis skirt, her hair swept up into a coronet of slightly burned profiteroles.
‘Who is it?’ Jazz asked languidly, looking up from her shoes.
‘Bianca — our Couples’ Counsellor. I’ve missed her class for weeks. Said I had terminal flu. Left another message today saying I was at death’s door.’
Jazz followed my gaze. ‘Oh my God! I know her.’
‘Really? You and Studz had therapy?’ I marvelled.
‘No. Her daughter does swimming training — you know, squads, at the Y, where Josh trains. Serendipity’s her name, can you believe it — she goes to your daughter’s school. Didn’t you know that, sweetie?’
‘No. I didn’t even know she had a daughter. Poor kid.’
‘You better believe it. Bianca only dresses her in unbleached cotton from Fair Trade. Sends her to swimming practice with lentil sandwiches on home-made rye. The woman has been irrigated in every orifice. She once told me she knew the other mums must always say about her “How does she do it! What an inspiration!” Well, let me tell you, what the other mums really say is “Quick! Hide! Here she comes!”’
‘Quick! Hide!’ I found myself saying. ‘Here she comes.’ I ducked down behind an ornamental shrub.
‘How can you take advice from herV Jazz scoffed. ‘The woman’s insane! Has she sat on your husband yet? She’s a real husband-sitter from way back. The female version of a marauding Viking. She’s had affairs with the swimming coach and two of the fathers. Yep. A total truffier of other women’s hubbies.’
‘Really?’ I experienced a colonic flutter as my sphincter battened down its hatches.
‘She’s also a marital bulimic,’ Jazz insisted. ‘Marry, divorce, marry, divorce . . . You’ve got to be suspicious of the “till death us do part” bit when the bride makes a habit of catching her own bouquet ... I can’t believe she’s teaching couples how to stay together! That’s hysterical,’ Jazz shrieked.
A cold shadow loomed over me and I squinted upwards. If only I weren’t so wimpy. I needed a wimpectomy, urgently.
‘My, my. What a speedy recovery you’ve made, Cassandra. 1 am glad. Although I’m sad you’ve missed my class.’
To my amazement, I gave her a tart, withering look.
T think ITl be missing it a whole lot more from now on, actually.’ It was as though I’d undergone a bravado-transplant and chutzpah transfusion.
‘Oh really? I think Rory is getting quite a lot from my self- help group.’
‘A self-help group is a contradiction in terms, you know,’ I pointed out, pedantically. Jazz and Hannah, astounded at my uncharacteristic outburst, applauded my sassiness.
‘I’m sorry you’re not as committed to your marriage as your husband is,’ Bianca seethed.
‘If I listen to you any longer. I’ll be committed alright. To an asylum.’
Which is exactly what I told Rory later that night. I was weary of being pushed around. It was as though my self-esteem were solar-powered, and it had done nothing but rain for day after day. But no more. I was no longer going to Cringe for Britain. The next morning, instead of cancelling the Science Museum excursion as instructed, I urged my pupils to get their parents to write to the Head expressing their disappointment. I also emailed Bianca to cancel the rest of our therapy sessions. But unfortunately, if I wouldn’t go to the sermon on mounting, the sermon on mounting started coming to me. Bianca was just suddenly always around. Inexplicably. Like carrot in vomit. You know how you can never remember eating any carrot, but there it is? Well, neither Rory nor I could ever remember inviting Bianca, but there she bloody well was. All the bloody time.
At first she popped over for advice on pets, which, as far as I could see, she didn’t own. Another June day, she zoomed over from Camden because her washing machine was on the blink. She then proceeded to confound and delight a neighbourhood
full of horny husbands by prancing to the clothesline and pegging up a line of erotic lingerie; making my devotion to the Cottontail God pale a little in Rory’s eyes by comparison.
One day in early July, she arrived wearing a bikini top and minuscule shorts. ‘It’s just way too hot to wear clothes today,’ she sighed.
‘Yes, clothes are just so last season,’ I said ironically.
‘Yeah. I’m with you, Bianca,’ I heard my husband say, boggle- eyed at her curvaceous body. ‘Cass, what do you think the neighbours would say if I took the rubbish out naked^ he said, palming the beard he’d started growing against my wishes.
‘Why bother? The neighbours already think that you’re a total Sex God. I mean, look around you. They obviously know I didn’t marry you for your money,’ I tried to joke, but was feeling nauseous with distrust.
‘My, my, my, Cassandra.’ Bianca seized on my comment with raptor-speed. ‘Do I sense a hint of animosity? Let’s examine your motives. Could it be because you’re a passive-aggressive coculprit?’
‘No, it’s because I think you’re a charlatan. I mean, you therapists are the ones who need therapists. The care of the id by the odd. Which is why we don’t want you coming around here any more.’ I moved to stand next to my husband. ‘Do we, Rory?’
Bianca wore the calculating expression of a praying mantis. Before my husband could answer, she said in her sumptuous, satiny voice, ‘Rory’s tragedy is that he has a huge capacity for loving, but the one person who should respond has rejected him. No wonder he retreats to the clinic.’
‘Ladies, ladies,’ Rory said, ‘I think Bianca’s clinic is making me a more evolved person. I relate to her energy.’
Relate to her energy? Evolved? Was this my husband speaking?
The beard, the dire chill-out CDs, the incense, the candles ... Mr Td-Rather-Die-Than-Have-Therapy had become a poster boy for karmic laundering.
T mean, this was yowr idea, Cassie,’ he went on. Tt was you who wanted me to get in touch with my emotions.’
T’d say you’re in touch with your emotions, Rore. Your selfish, arrogant, mean emotions.’
‘Well, he’ll be in touch with a whole lot more next week,’ Bianca boasted.
‘What’s that supposed to meanT
‘1 was going to tell you,’ Rory said sheepishly. ‘Bianca’s holding a little graduation class.’
‘What’s that?’
‘Well, I prefer to call it a sensual, interactive surprise,’ Bianca preened. ‘At my home.’
I felt my chest tighten. I had a feeling that any party at Bianca’s would only require one etiquette tip. ‘Take off underwear — mingle.’ The woman’s front door no doubt had a sign: Come In! We Are Never Clothed!
‘Shall 1 take it you’ll be coming?’ she asked archly, before laughing fakely. ‘I suppose that’s pretty much the point of an orgy!’
I wondered how many times she’d made that little joke. Still, Rory laughed uproariously.
Perhaps now would be the right moment to pretend to her that my husband was just recovering from the surgical part of his sex-change operation. One thing was sure. It was time to page Doctor Freud to reception . . .