Collected Poems, page 21
determined and blind, started the morning’s hymn. I vow
to thee my country . . . A flushed Miss Fife started to play.
All earthly things above . . . The rest of the staff joined in –
entire and whole and perfect, the service of my love,
the love that asks no questions, the love that stands the test . . .
But the girls were hysterical, watching the Head,
Queen Canute, singing against the tide of their mirth,
their shoals, their glittering laughter. She opened her eyes –
Clarice Maud Bream, MBE, DLitt – and saw, in the giggling sea
one face which seemed to her to be worse, cheekier,
redder and louder, than all of the rest. Nigella Dawn
was fished by the Head from her seat and made to stand
on a chair on the stage. Laughter drained from the Hall. This girl,
boomed the Head, will stand on this chair for as long as it takes
for the school to come to its senses. SILENCE! The whole school
stood like a crowd waiting for news. The bell rang. Nobody
moved. Nobody made a sound. Minutes slinked away
as Nigella Dawn swayed on her creaky chair. The First Years
stared in shame at their shoes. The Head’s tight smile
was a tick. That, she thought, in a phrase of her mother’s,
has put the tin lid on that. A thin high whine, a kitten,
wind on a wire, came from behind. The school
seemed to hold its breath. Nigella Dawn shook on her chair.
The sound came again, louder. Doctor Bream looked to the staff.
Miss Batt had her head in her lap and was keening and rocking
backwards and forwards. The noise put the Head in mind
of a radio dial – Luxembourg, Light, Hilversum, Welsh –
as though the woman were trying to tune in to herself. Miss Batt
flung her head back and laughed, laughed like a bride.
*
Mr and Mrs Mackay silently ate. She eyed him
boning his fish, slicing it down to the backbone,
sliding the skeleton out, fastidious, deft. She spied him
eat from the right of his plate to the left, ordered, precise.
She clenched herself for his voice. A very nice dish
from the bottomless deep. Bad words ran in her head like mice.
She wanted to write them down in the crossword lights.
14 Across: F . . . 17 Down: F . . . . . . 2 Down: F . . . . . .
Mr Mackay reached for the OED. She bit her lip. A word
for one who is given to walking by night, not necessarily
in sleep. She felt her heart flare in its dark cave, hungry, blind,
open its small beak. Beginning with N. Mrs Mackay
moved to the window and stared at the ravenous night. Later,
awake in the beached boat of the marital bed, Mrs Mackay
slid from between the sheets. Her spouse whistled and whined.
She dressed in sweater and slacks, in boots, in her old tweed
coat, and slipped from the house with a tut of the front door snib.
Her breath swaggered away like a genie popped from a flask.
She looked for the moon, found it, arched high over the house,
a raised eyebrow of light, and started to walk. The streets
were empty, darkly sparkling under her feet, ribbons that tied
the sleeping town like a gift. A black cat glared from a wall.
Mrs Mackay walked and walked and walked, letting the night
sigh underneath her clothes, perfume her skin; letting it in,
the scented night – stone, starlight, tree-sleep, rat, owl.
A calm rhythm measured itself in her head. Noctambulist.
She walked for hours, till dawn’s soft tip rubbed, smudged,
erased the dark. Back home, she stripped and washed
and dressed for school, moving about in the kitchen
till Mr Mackay appeared, requesting a four-minute egg
from a satisfied hen. She watched him slice off the top
with the side of his spoon, dip in his toast, savour the soft gold
of the yolk with his neat tongue. She thought of the girls,
how they’d laughed now for weeks. Panic nipped and salted
her eyes. And later that day, walking among the giggling desks
of the Third, she read Cleopatra’s lament in a shaking voice
as tears shone on her cheeks: Hast thou no care of me?
Shall I abide in this dull world, which in thy absence is
No better than a sty? O! see my women, the crown
o’ the earth doth melt. My lord! O! withered is the garland
of the war, the soldier’s pole is fall’n; young boys and girls
are level now with men; the odds is gone, and there is nothing
left remarkable beneath the visiting moon. Carolann Clare, trapped
in a breathless, crippling laugh, seriously thought she would die.
Mrs Mackay lay down her book and asked the girls to start
from the top and carry on reading the play round the class.
She closed her eyes and seemed to drift off at her desk.
The voices of girls shared Shakespeare, line by line, the clock
over the blackboard crumbling its minutes into the dusty air.
From the other side of the wall, light breezes of laughter came
and went. Further away, from the music room, the sound
of the orchestra hooted and sneered its way through Grieg.
Miss Batt, in the staffroom, marking The War of Jenkins’ Ear
over and over again, put down her pen. Music reminded her
of Miss Fife. She lay her head on the table, dizzy with lust, longed
for the four o’clock bell, for home, for pasta and vino rosso,
for Fifi’s body on hers in the single bed, for kisses that tasted
of jotters, of wine. She picked up an essay and read:
England went to war with Spain because a seaman, Robert
Jenkins, claimed that the Spanish thought him a smuggler
and cut off his ear. He showed the ear in the Commons
and public opinion forced the Government to declare war
on October 23, 1739 . . . Miss Batt cursed under her breath,
slashing a red tick with her pen. The music had stopped. Hilarity
squealed and screeched in its place down the corridor.
Miss Nadimbaba was teaching the poems of Yeats
to the Fifth when the girls in the orchestra laughed. She held
in her hands the poem which had made her a scribbler of verse
at twelve or thirteen. ‘The Song’ – she was sick of the laughter
at Stafford Girls’ High – ‘of Wandering Aengus.’ She stared
at the girls in her class who were starting to shake. An epidemic,
that’s what it was. It had gone on all term. It was now the air
that they breathed, teachers and girls: a giggling, sniggering,
gurgling, snickering atmosphere, a laughing gas that seeped
under doors, up corridors, into the gym, the chemistry lab,
the swimming pool, into Latin and Spanish and French and Greek,
into Needlework, History, Art, R.K., P.E.,into cross-country runs,
into the silver apples of the moon, the golden apples of the sun.
Miss Dunn stood with her bike outside school after four,
scanning the silly, cackling girls for a face – Diana Kim’s.
The Captain of Sports was tall, red-haired. Her green eyes
stared at Miss Dunn and Miss Dunn knew. This was a girl
who would scale a vertical wall of ice with her fingertips,
who would pitch a tent on the lip of a precipice, who would know
when the light was good, when the wind was bad, when snow
was powdery or hard. The girl had the stuff of heroines. Diana Kim
walked with the teacher, pushing her bicycle for her, hearing her
outline the journey, the great adventure, the climb to the Mother
of Earth. Something inside her opened and bloomed.
Miss Dunn was her destiny, fame, a strong hand pulling her higher and
higher into the far Tibetan clouds, into the sun.
*
Doctor Bream was well aware that something had to be done.
Laughter, it seemed, was on the curriculum. The girls
found everything funny, strange; howled or screamed
at the slightest thing. The Headmistress prowled the school,
listening at classroom doors. The new teacher, Mrs Munro,
was reading The Flaying of Marsyas to the Third: Help!
Why are you stripping me from myself? The girls were in fits.
Mrs Munro’s tight voice struggled on: It was possible to count
his throbbing organs and the chambers of his lungs. Shrieks
and squeals stabbed the air. Why? At what? Doctor Bream
snooped on. Miss Batt was teaching the First Form the names
of the nine major planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars,
Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus . . . Pandemonium hooted and whooped.
The grim Head passed down the corridor, hearing the Fifth Form
gargling its way through the Diet of Worms. She came
to the Honours Board, the names of the old girls written in gold –
Head Girls who had passed into legend, Captains of Sport
who had played the game, prize-winning girls, girls who’d gone on
to achieve great things. Members of Parliament! Blasts of laughter
belched from the playing fields. Doctor Bream walked to her room
and stood by her desk. Her certificates preened behind glass
in the wintery light. Silver medals and trophies and cups gleamed
in the cabinet. She went to the wall – the school photograph
glinted and glowed, each face like a fingertip; the pupils
straight-backed, straight-faced; the staff upright, straight-laced.
A warm giggle burbled outside. She flung open the door.
The empty corridor winked. She could hear
a distant piano practising Für Elise . . . Señora Devizes
counting in Spanish in one of the rooms – uno, dos, tres,
cuatro, cinco, seis, siete, ocho, nueve, diez, once, doce,
trece, catorce, quince, diez y seis, diez y siete, diez y ocho . . .
a shrill whistle blowing outside . . . But then a burst of hysteria
came from the classroom above, rolled down the stairs,
exploded again in the classroom below. Mrs Mackay,
frantic, hoarse, could be heard pitching Portia’s speech
over the hoots of the Fourth: The quality of MERCY
is not STRAINED. It droppeth as the gentle rain from HEAVEN
upon the place BENEATH . . . Cackles, like gunfire, crackled
and spat through the school. A cheer boomed from the Gym.
It went on thus – through every hymn or poem, catechism,
logarithm, sum, exam; in every classroom, drama room
to music room; on school trips to a factory or farm; from
First to Sixth Form, dunce to academic crème de la crème,
day in, day out; till, towards the end of the Hilary Term,
Doctor Bream called yet another meeting in the Staffroom,
determined now to solve the problem of the laughter
of the girls once and for all. The staff filed in at 4.15 –
Miss Batt, Miss Fife, Miss Dunn, Mrs Munro, the sporty
Mrs Lee, Mrs Mackay, Miss Nadimbaba, the Heads of French
and Science – Miss Feaver, Mrs Kaye – Señora Devizes,
the tuneful Miss Aherne, the part-time drama teacher
Mrs Prendergast. The Head stood up and clapped her hands.
Miss Fife poured Earl Grey tea. Miss Dunn stood by the window,
staring out. Miss Batt burned at Miss Fife. Mrs Mackay
sat down and closed her eyes. Miss Nadimbaba churned
the closing couplet of a poem in her head. Miss Feaver
crossed her legs and smiled at Mrs Lee, who twirled
a squash racquet between her rosy knees. I think we all agree,
said Doctor Bream, that things are past the pale. The girls
are learning nothing. Discipline’s completely gone
to pot. I’d like to hear from each of you in turn. Mrs Mackay?
Mrs Mackay opened her eyes and sighed. And shook her head.
And then she started singing: It was a lover and his lass,
with a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonino, that o’er
the green cornfield did pass, in the spring time,
the only pretty ring time, when birds do sing, hey ding
a ding, ding; sweet lovers love the spring. A silence fell.
Miss Batt looked at Miss Fife and cleared her throat. Miss Fife
and I are leaving at the end of term. Miss Dunn at the window
turned. I’m leaving then myself. To have a crack at Everest . . .
The Head sank to a chair. Miss Nadimbaba stood. Then one by one
the staff resigned – to publish poetry, to live in Spain, to form
a tennis club, to run a restaurant in Nice, to tread the boards,
to sing in smoky clubs, to translate Ovid into current speech,
to study homeopathy. Doctor Bream was white with shock.
And what, she forced herself at last to say, about the girls?
Miss Batt, slowly undressing Fifi in the stockroom in her head,
winked at Miss Fife. She giggled girlishly. Miss Feaver laughed.
*
Small hours. The moon tracked Mrs Mackay as she reached the edge
of the sleeping town, houses dwindling to fields, the road
twisting up and away into the distant hills. She caught her mind
making anagrams – grow heed, stab, rats – and forced herself
to chant aloud as she walked. Hedgerow. Bats. Star. Her head
cleared. The town was below her now, dark and hunched,
a giant husband bunched in his sleep. Mrs Mackay climbed on,
higher and higher, keeping close to the ditch, till the road snaked
in a long S then levelled out into open countryside. Shore,
love, steer, low, master, night loom, riven use, no. Horse. Vole.
Trees. Owl. Stream. Moonlight. Universe. On. Wed, loop, wand,
drib, tiles, pay thaw, god. Dew. Pool. Dawn. Bird. Stile. Pathway.
Dog. She arrived at the fringe of a village as morning broke.
Miss Batt held Miss Fife in her arms at dawn, the small room
chaste with new light. Miss Fife began to talk in her sleep –
The square on the hypotenuse is equal to the sum
of the squares of the other two sides. Miss Batt slid down,
nuzzled her breastbone, her stomach, kissed down,
kissed down, down to the triangle. The tutting bedside clock
counted to five. They woke again at seven, stupid with love,
everything they knew – the brightest stars, Sirius, Canopus,
Alpha Centauri, Vega; the Roman Emperors, Claudius,
Nero, Galba, Otho, Vitellius; musical terms, allegro, calando,
crescendo, glissando; mathematics, the value of pi,
prime numbers, Cantor’s infinities – only
a jumble of words, a jumble of words. A long deep zero groaned from Miss Fife.
Miss Dunn took out her list and checked it again. Her class
was sniggering its way through a test on Britain’s largest lakes.
She mouthed her list like a prayer: socks, mittens, shirt, leggings,
hat, face mask, goggles, harness, karabiners, ice screws, pitons,
helmet, descender, ascender, loops, slings, ice axe, gaiters,
crampons, boots, jacket, hood, trousers, water
bottle, urine bottle, waste bags, sleeping bag, kit bag, head torch, batteries,
tent, medical kit, maps, stove, butane, radio, fixing line, rope,
cord, stoppers, wands, stakes and chocks and all of it twice.
A sprinkle of giggles made her look up. Pass your test to the girl
on your left to be marked. The answers are: Lough Neagh,
Lower Lough Erne, Loch Lomond, Loch Ness, Loch Awe, Upper
Lough Erne . . . Diana Kim climbed and climbed in her head.
Doctor Bream read through the letter to parents then signed
her name at the end. The school was to close at the end of term
until further notice. A dozen resignation notes from the staff
lay on her desk. The Head put her head in her hands and wept.
A local journalist lurked at the gates. Señora Devizes
and Miss Nadimbaba entered the room to say that the girls
were filing into the Hall for the Special Assembly. There was still
no sign of Mrs Mackay. She looked at the shattered Head
and Kipling sprang to Miss Nadimbaba’s lips: If you can force
your heart and nerve and sinew to serve your turn long after they
are gone . . . Señora Devizes joined in: Persiste aun no tengas
fuerza, y sólo te quede la voluntad que les dice:
¡Persiste! The Head got to her feet and straightened her back.
And so, Doctor Bream summed up, you girls have laughed this once
great school into the ground. Señora Devizes plans to return
to Spain. Cries of ¡Olé! Miss Batt and Miss Fife have resigned.
Wolf whistles. Mrs Prendergast is joining the Theatre Royale.
A round of applause crashed on the boards like surf. The Head stared
at the laughing girls then turned and marched from the stage,
clipped up the polished corridor, banged through the double doors,
crunched down the gravel drive to the Staff Car Park and into her car.
Elvis, shrieked Caroline Joan from the Hall, has left the building.
A cheer like an avalanche bounced off the roof. The Captain of Sports
slipped from her seat and followed Miss Dunn. The girls burst
into song as their mute teachers walked from the stage. Till we
have built Jerusalem in England’s green and pleasant land.
*
The empty school creaked and sighed, its desks the small coffins
