Miss Carter's War (9 page)

‘Ja, mein Führer. Achtung. Sieg Heil.’ Some of the others joined in.

The shrill commands. The clanging of boots on the cobbles. Through a crack in the shutter, the girl watches the three uniformed men stride down the street. The one in front has a clipboard and is checking the numbers. They stop outside Rachel’s apartment and hammer on the door. They shout up at the windows
.

‘Be quiet. Shut up, shut up.’ Marguerite was shaking. ‘How dare you make a joke of it. The horror.’

Coming to her senses, Marguerite was aware that she must have spoken. The children in the classroom were staring at this demented stranger. Miss Scott too was looking at her. Quick, take command of the situation. Control was essential. She wrenched herself into teacher mode, turning it into a learning opportunity.

‘Do you know how many people died in the war that you find so funny?’

Silence.

‘Come along now. How many? D’you mind, Miss Scott?’

‘No, please go ahead.’

The room was now quite still.

‘Come on, you were making enough noise just now. Cat got your tongues? How many?’

A girl’s voice, quietly:

‘Three in our road.’

A few sniggers.

‘It was a landmine, miss.’

A hand went up. ‘My dad.’

Another hand.

‘And mine.’

And another. Three fathers in all, and two brothers. Marguerite came out of her whirlwind of fury and saw the pinched, sober faces trying to work out how to deal with such an outburst, from what was presumably a teacher.

Marguerite herself was bewildered.

‘I’m sorry. I’m so sorry.’

This was even more alarming. A teacher apologising to them. Although they were not sure for what.

An eager-to-please child, with unkempt hair, was thrusting her hand in the air.

‘That’s eight, miss. That’s right isn’t it, miss? Three, plus two, plus three. How many do you make it, miss?’

‘Yes, that is correct, dear.’ Marguerite hesitated. ‘I was going to say 51 million, but three friends, three fathers and two brothers is much worse. I’m so sorry.’

And now they saw a teacher’s tears.

Marguerite felt a cool hand on her arm. The head indicated the door, where a frail, youngish woman was apologising for her absence.

‘Never mind, Miss Wilberforce. 5c, Miss Wilberforce is back now, get out your books and get down to work.’

As they walked back to her room, the headmistress sighed as the noise-level rose again behind them.

‘She won’t last the week.’

Over a cup of tea Marguerite apologised for her unprofessional behaviour. She was embarrassed by her outburst. Miss Scott was sympathetic.

‘I deal with this on a day-to-day basis. I have grown accustomed to it, but I remember when I first came to this school, after the wonderful theories of teaching I learnt at college, and then a post in a civilised little Direct Grant school in leafy Surrey, I too couldn’t believe it, but now I know it’s true and I have to get on with it.’

Marguerite was dumbfounded.

‘How on earth do you cope?’

‘I suppose because I care about them – if that doesn’t sound too wishy-washy. As you found out, those kids have suffered. Bombing, evacuation, fractured families. And now, when they expected peace to be wonderful, it isn’t. There’s dreariness everywhere. Only bomb sites to play in, rationing, and prefabs to live in.’

Marguerite said feebly, ‘Well, there’s the National Health.’

‘True, their teeth will improve, but the education they’re getting is lamentable. We’ve let them down.’

‘But their behaviour towards you—’

‘They’re youngsters with no hope, no self-respect. So why should they show it to others? They have sat in their primary school class and heard the names read out of the successful with grammar school places, and realised that they were going to be dumped in a secondary modern or a tech. Herded together with all the other failures.’

‘I hadn’t realised.’

‘If I didn’t have fifty in a class, and teachers like that poor mouse, I could turn their lives around, but they have been branded as rubbish at eleven, so that is what they will be. We are producing a lost generation here.’

‘But things have improved. Girls at my school have been lifted out of their backgrounds to be given a tiptop education.’

‘But are they comfortable there?’

‘Yes, I’m sure they are.’

Then she thought of Elsie and Irene. Miss Scott raised a plucked eyebrow.

‘I hope so. I do so hope so.’

Marguerite recognised in the headmistress the same reforming zeal as she herself had, but in Miss Scott it was swamped by exhaustion. Closeted in her safe little world Marguerite had had no idea such schools existed. She was so privileged to be at a grammar school, for all its sometimes irksome rigidity.

When she reported back on her visit, Miss Fryer’s reaction was in accord with that strict ethos.

‘They are given too much freedom at that school, admittedly partly to do with overcrowding. You see, Miss Carter, during the war children ran wild. They must be tamed. They need tactful discipline from teachers and, essentially, parents too, with clear standards. Too much freedom breeds selfishness, vandalism and ultimately personal unhappiness. As you have witnessed at the secondary modern.’

Marguerite wanted to dispute this opinion, but she would be challenging a woman who ran a successful school, liked by parents and pupils, from the standpoint of a teacher of a mere two years’ experience. Instead she arranged to meet Tony in the pub and bombarded him with her confusion. He was an invaluable safety valve.

‘Of course you can’t leave the grammar and go and teach there. It’s a dump. You would be wasted. Miss Scott is an excellent head, but she can’t turn it round. It’s the tripartite system. Grading them as successes or failures at eleven is absurd. It stinks.’

‘Well what can we do?’

‘Keep on doing the good job you are doing here. You are transforming lives because you are a brilliant teacher. Stick to what is possible.’

‘I can’t get those kids out of my mind. It’s so unfair. I’m really upset, Tony. Come back to my place, please. I need you.’

Up to now they had met in public, but seldom had any privacy. She knew that he was frightened of compromising her reputation, and therefore her job, by letting their friendship become too intimate; Miss Fryer would never tolerate that sort of carry-on between staff members. Then there were his weekends away, which she presumed involved a woman, maybe married, but certainly ‘complicated’. Marguerite was not even sure what she wanted from Tony but, of late, she was feeling the need for a deeper understanding between them. Her Catholic guilt had always prevented her from having the sort of promiscuous sex life her fellow university students had had. In any case the bond with Marcel was difficult to break. She had been his, body and soul, in tempestuous circumstances, and no trivial affaire de coeur could compete with that. Other than the one fleeting episode when she lost her virginity, before she met Marcel, he had been her only sexual partner. At twenty-seven she was beginning to wonder if she would suffer the fate so dreaded by her age group of being ‘on the shelf’. She was panicked by a statistic in
The Times
: 96 per cent of adult women were married. But her work did not bring her into contact with, or allow her much time to meet, available men. Her ­colleagues seemed content to sublimate any urges by pouring their energy into their work. Maybe that would be enough for her too.

But Tony unsettled her. Occasionally she felt the need for more than fun and chat with him. Dancing close to him at the Festival of Britain she had felt a surge of desire, which she suspected was mutual, but he had insisted that they get the last train home. In retrospect she was grateful that he saved her from the squalid business of a borrowed wedding ring and signing a hotel register as ‘Mr and Mrs’; that would have been no way to start a romance. Since then, she had got pleasure from the sight of him, brown and lithe and tousle-haired, playing tennis with the girls. She wondered what it would be like if their chummy hugs turned into something more satisfying. As for the scandal, with her need for comfort, Marguerite was past caring.

She grasped his hand.

‘Please, Tony, come back with me.’

He stared at her long and hard. He didn’t reply. The chatter and clink of glasses in the bar were the only sounds.

‘Best not, lovey.’

Then he said, ‘But I tell you what, we’ll have one of our treats. Next week, Judy is appearing at the Palladium. I’ve got two tickets.’

‘Judy?’

‘Garland, woman. The one and only. It’ll be a night to remember.’

Chapter 9

On the night they went to the West End of London there was a pea-souper of a fog, which made it difficult to see more than a few feet in front of them. Even inside the theatre it was faintly misty, and people were coughing and wiping their eyes. There was an atmosphere of excitement. Marguerite was surprised at how many of the mainly male audience knew Tony, and greeted him effusively. One blond young man ruffled his hair.

‘Oh vade the bona riah,’ he said. Then he cast a glance at Marguerite.

‘Who’s the palone? Lovely lallies,’ the young man said, sizing her up.

When he’d gone she grabbed Tony’s arm.

‘What’s going on? What’s he talking about?’

‘Oh that’s Polari. Our secret language.’

‘Our? Whose? What do you mean?’

He avoided her eyes.

‘Come on, there’s the bell. Mind you, she’s bound to be late.’

The red plush of the Palladium was tatty, and the gilt tarnished. The star was indeed late. About half an hour late. During which time the excitement in the auditorium rose to fever pitch, so that when, at last, the tiny woman in a sequinned jacket and black tights on exquisite legs came onto the stage, there was a great roar of welcome, then a gasp when she seemed to stumble. The whole performance was nerve-racking for Marguerite. Garland forgot the words of one song, and ordered the conductor to start again. The audience were now at her feet, and even though her voice was cracking, and every now and then she stood stock-still as if she wasn’t sure where she was, they lapped up every moment. Occasionally she would take a number at breakneck speed, frantically striding the stage, and batting her arms about as though to thrash the song out of herself. It was disturbing to Marguerite, but the audience seemed in seventh heaven. She was conscious of Tony watching her reaction. When this big-eyed waif sat on the edge of the stage, legs dangling into the orchestra pit, tremulously singing ‘Over The Rainbow’, it had even Marguerite gulping back a sob.

After the tumultuous reception, during which Judy threw kisses, and picked up the flowers thrown onto the stage, Tony insisted on following the crowd of shrieking people to the dingy stage door. When, after a long wait, Garland ventured out of the theatre, to whoops from the crowd, she looked genuinely surprised and delighted, although presumably it happened every night. Her tiny frame was cocooned in white fur, and diamonds flashed from head and wrists. She seemed supernatural, insubstantial, as though her quivering white face might melt into nothing. She grasped hands and laughed and joked hysterically, devouring the devotion. Tony was in the thick of it. Marguerite had noticed, through the smog, a group of policemen surveying the scene, disgust etched on their faces. When eventually the adored diva had been manoeuvred into her Rolls-Royce and had departed, waving, several men, including Tony, hugged each other and Marguerite saw a policeman ostentatiously write something in a notebook.

One of the them gave a warning.

‘Vade lilly law, boys.’

And the crowd quickly dispersed.

Tony came towards her. They stood silently facing each other, the fog swirling round them.

‘Now you know.’

‘My God, Tony. Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘The clues were there.’

There were no buses or taxis running, but they groped their way on foot to Charing Cross Station. Neither spoke, except to warn the other of a kerb or an obstacle. They kept their distance. There was a long, silent wait for the train and it drew away very slowly. They managed to find a compartment to themselves. Tony yanked at the strap of the window to close a small chink and closed the door to the corridor, before sitting opposite her.

‘Why didn’t you tell me?’

‘I thought – hoped – you’d realise. You’ve seen life. You went through the war, for heaven’s sake.’

‘That doesn’t make me an expert in sexual deviance.’

Tony flinched.

‘Why didn’t you tell me straight out?’

‘I was terrified.’

‘Of what?’

‘Everything.’

He looked terrified, quite unlike the exuberant man she was used to. He seemed to have shrunk, huddled into his duffel coat, scarf around his chin, hands deep in his pockets, slumped down in the seat.

‘You should have told me before.’