Read Online What Was She Thinking? by Zoë Heller - Free Book Online Page B
Authors: Zoë Heller
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we studied the two boys. The taller one, Kilbane, had been in one of my bottom-stream history classes the year before. He was known to his classmates as Lurch. The one with the blond hair I did not know. He was not as confident as Kilbane and, when I asked him his name, he spoke it quietly to the floor.
“Excuse me?” I said. “Speak up, please.”
He raised his head. “Steven Connolly, Miss,” he said. His voice still had a trace of boy in it—a scraping clarinet tootle.
I went through the usual process with the boys—cold outrage, warm threats, admonitions to “shape up.” I suppose that I laid it on a bit thick for Sheba’s benefit. As I spoke, Connolly kept his eyes on the floor, occasionally lifting his head to glance stealthily at Sheba. “Look at me when I am speaking to you,” I told him.
Did I sense anything sexual in his attitude towards her then? Possibly. But dealings with male pupils of that age are rarely without some manner of sexual undertow. A secondary school is a kind of hormonal soup. All those bodies pressed in on one another—bubbling with puberty and low-level, adolescent fantasy—are bound to produce a certain atmosphere. Even I, a woman in my early sixties, and by common consent no oil painting, have been known to prick the testosteronal curiosity of my fifteen-year-old charges from time to time. It is something to which one becomes inured. Very rarely, sexual tension will be released in a small explosion of some sort—a groping, a threat. There was one occasion, back in 1982, when an absolutely evil little fellow in the third year named Mark Roth assaulted the young woman who was coming in at the time to give French conversation. (He was apparently on top of her when her screams alerted a staff member who happened to be walking by.) But that was a singular case. For the most part, the sexual angst of the school’s student population is nothing more than an indistinct background hum: so much white noise.
After I was done lecturing the boys, I accompanied them back into the classroom and watched them settle down to their assigned tasks. My handling of this episode had not been altogether tactful. School etiquette demands that, where one’s moral authority with the children is demonstrably greater than that of a fellow staff member, one should endeavour to play down the fact. Instead, I had gone out of my way to flaunt my superior disciplinary skills. I went over to Sheba, who was standing at the front of the room. “Don’t hesitate to call me if these two give you any further problems,” I told her. I assumed that she would be peevish. But as I walked away she came after me, with a wide smile on her narrow face. At the door she
leaned into me and put her hand on my shoulder. “Thank you son much for saving me, Barbara,” she whispered. I was too taken aback to say anything. In fact, it was not until I had walked out into the hall and closed the door behind me that I remembered some sort of response might have been expected.
4
I was late for Pabblem, of course. When I walked into his office, he was kneeling on his special backless, ergonomic chair, emanating a prissy sort of dissatisfaction. “At last!” he cried when he saw me. He proceeded to wish me good afternoon with the rather too careful politeness of someone who has plans to be nasty. “Please …” He gestured to a chair (nonergonomic, standard issue) on the other side of his desk. I sat down. The school’s administration centre is housed in an ugly, L-shaped annex to the science block, and Pabblem’s office, which is at the very end of the annex, looks out onto a modest square of grass and flower beds known as the headmaster’s garden. That afternoon, Phelps, the school caretaker, and Jenkins, his depressed assistant, were in the garden installing a birdbath. I was able to track their comically incompetent manoeuvres over Pabblem’s shoulder as he spoke.
“Good week?” Pabblem asked.
I nodded. I
“Excuse me?” I said. “Speak up, please.”
He raised his head. “Steven Connolly, Miss,” he said. His voice still had a trace of boy in it—a scraping clarinet tootle.
I went through the usual process with the boys—cold outrage, warm threats, admonitions to “shape up.” I suppose that I laid it on a bit thick for Sheba’s benefit. As I spoke, Connolly kept his eyes on the floor, occasionally lifting his head to glance stealthily at Sheba. “Look at me when I am speaking to you,” I told him.
Did I sense anything sexual in his attitude towards her then? Possibly. But dealings with male pupils of that age are rarely without some manner of sexual undertow. A secondary school is a kind of hormonal soup. All those bodies pressed in on one another—bubbling with puberty and low-level, adolescent fantasy—are bound to produce a certain atmosphere. Even I, a woman in my early sixties, and by common consent no oil painting, have been known to prick the testosteronal curiosity of my fifteen-year-old charges from time to time. It is something to which one becomes inured. Very rarely, sexual tension will be released in a small explosion of some sort—a groping, a threat. There was one occasion, back in 1982, when an absolutely evil little fellow in the third year named Mark Roth assaulted the young woman who was coming in at the time to give French conversation. (He was apparently on top of her when her screams alerted a staff member who happened to be walking by.) But that was a singular case. For the most part, the sexual angst of the school’s student population is nothing more than an indistinct background hum: so much white noise.
After I was done lecturing the boys, I accompanied them back into the classroom and watched them settle down to their assigned tasks. My handling of this episode had not been altogether tactful. School etiquette demands that, where one’s moral authority with the children is demonstrably greater than that of a fellow staff member, one should endeavour to play down the fact. Instead, I had gone out of my way to flaunt my superior disciplinary skills. I went over to Sheba, who was standing at the front of the room. “Don’t hesitate to call me if these two give you any further problems,” I told her. I assumed that she would be peevish. But as I walked away she came after me, with a wide smile on her narrow face. At the door she
leaned into me and put her hand on my shoulder. “Thank you son much for saving me, Barbara,” she whispered. I was too taken aback to say anything. In fact, it was not until I had walked out into the hall and closed the door behind me that I remembered some sort of response might have been expected.
4
I was late for Pabblem, of course. When I walked into his office, he was kneeling on his special backless, ergonomic chair, emanating a prissy sort of dissatisfaction. “At last!” he cried when he saw me. He proceeded to wish me good afternoon with the rather too careful politeness of someone who has plans to be nasty. “Please …” He gestured to a chair (nonergonomic, standard issue) on the other side of his desk. I sat down. The school’s administration centre is housed in an ugly, L-shaped annex to the science block, and Pabblem’s office, which is at the very end of the annex, looks out onto a modest square of grass and flower beds known as the headmaster’s garden. That afternoon, Phelps, the school caretaker, and Jenkins, his depressed assistant, were in the garden installing a birdbath. I was able to track their comically incompetent manoeuvres over Pabblem’s shoulder as he spoke.
“Good week?” Pabblem asked.
I nodded. I
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