Diary of an Assistant Mistress

by Teri Power

  This didn't even settle.

  Sunday 24th April

  I don't see why anyone has the heart to saw down silver birch trees, as I saw two young men doing today. They are ideal phallic symbols, so erect, so pale, so commonplace. Talking of which, James ... but do I have to labour the obvious?

  But then again, why not. We were seated on the sofa watching yet another rather poorly made video with a Swedish accent (this did not matter as the dialogue was minimal). I waited until James' erection was placing his Levis under strain. I very carefully unzipped his fly, very slowly covered my hand with vaseline and took hold of his warm penis. It was then that he discovered that I had previously put Algipan on my palm. He didn't complain, though he moaned a little.

  Is there a good way of getting semen stains off velour upholstery?

  Monday 25th April

  A new set of incomprehensible instructions on assessing oral work came cascading out of the old pigeon hole this morning, along with a reminder that eighth year reports are due in on Friday. Spent the evening not doing the eighth year reports. I had brought home all the paperwork but forgotten the forms. We spent the evening in the pub so it was not completely wasted. James then suggested that he assess my oral work. I agreed. I must have been drunk.

  Tuesday 26th April

  Rosencrantz is dead, Guildenstern is dead, and you know the rest by now. I can remember a time when I didn't get hangovers. Youth is wasted on the teetotal.

  Wednesday 27th April

  Made a serious start on the eighth year reports. After half an hour, I found that the first two I had written were identical, which suggests that I am paying too much attention to National Cur criteria and not enough to the children. I decided to write a real report on their work and ignore the Key Stage. This way I got most of them done.

  Thursday 28th April

  Rang the computer repair experts and got the Man Who Knows Nothing About Computers. He has obviously had a sex-change operation as he is now the Girl Who Knows Nothing About Computers. However GWKNAC was as informative as ever and I now know less than I did.

  Friday 29th April

  Handed in the eighth year reports this morning. Received them back this afternoon. They are not in line with the guidelines, so I must put them in line with the guidelines BY YESTERDAY.

  Alternatives include:

  a) Spending the weekend writing the reports again, in line with the Fat Controller's guidelines.

  b) Keeping the reports until the last moment and then resubmitting them as they are.

  c) both (a) and (b) in case (a) backfires or I lose my nerve.

  James was back with the lurid videos again tonight. I told him what I thought of the Fat Controller and his guidelines at some length and he found this sufficiently detumescent for at least five minutes. In the end he was so sympathetic and understanding I agreed to watch it with him.

  Sexy Samantha was in the middle of trying to swallow a cucumber in a novel fashion when James noticed that I had started writing reports and he gave it up as a bad job.

  Saturday 30th April

  James did the shopping, I did the reports. They now tell you nothing about the pupils but lots about the National Cur and that is the main thing.

  We went to a party at George and Edie's. And they said it wouldn't last! George has still got a roving eye but less of a roving hand thank goodness.

  I noticed what I can only describe as an atmosphere between Oz and Clair. I hope Oz isn't taking over the role of departmental lecher - partly because he really is very physically clumsy.

  May

  Sunday 1st May

  A luxurious lie-in and lashings of orange-juice. We discussed the party. James confided that he had been talking to Tessa. (I didn't confide that I knew he had been doing rather more than talk and I thought on the whole he was wasting his time).

  Tessa claimed, in a hoarse whisper in the shadow of the staircase, that Clair was at dagger's drawn with Oz because Oz's wife had "found out" and Oz had dropped Clair rather unceremoniously.

  Every single item in this story was news to me. I must find time for a word with Tessa. She is in charge of the stock cupboard so it should not be impossible to manufacture a pretext.

  Monday 2nd May

  Bank holiday. We attended the local Labour Party rally. They are not so far gone on the "designer socialist" kick as to forget May Day. However, the main speaker was clearly the sort of reformist who - to use my mother's phrase - wouldn't say boo to a goose without consulting the opinion polls first. Personally I think I could designer better socialist with my eyes closed.

  John and his former curate were both there, hardly speaking but holding up opposite ends of the Christian CND banner.

  Tuesday 3rd May

  Cornered Tessa in stock cupboard. She didn't know anything about Clair and Oz and apparently James' version of what she said was a little garbled. She had an idea that the affair between Clair and Oz was a figment of his wife's imagination and that Clair's indignation was at "the very idea" rather than the fury of a woman scorned.

  This sounds a bit more likely. In the cold light of day, I can't see Oz summoning up the energy for any extra-marital hanky panky or Clair succumbing to his advances, I will reserve judgement until I get a chance to talk to Clair.

  Actually I did talk to Clair today but it was about swapping classrooms for period 5.

  Wednesday 4th May

  Well. According to Clair, it was all Oz's fault. He had not been having an affair with Clair (she did use the phrase, "the very idea!") but during a row with his wife, she had accused him of carrying on with Clair and he had chosen not to deny it - it seems he rather liked the idea, even if it wasn't true. A storm in a teacup, or in Oz's case probably a gin bottle? I expect so.

  Of course this does leave the rather intriguing question of where Oz's wife, who is not completely stupid as far as I know, got the idea in the first place.

  Thursday 5th May

  I was summoned to Peter's office today. Naturally pictures of all those things I ought not to have done scrolled before my eyes as soon as I got the message.

  However, it turned out that they have decided to overcome my dispute with Maths by abolishing Information Technology. The real subject is to be replaced with the fiction that every teacher is teaching "Information Technology across the curriculum" and I'm the Queen of Sheba.

  I am a little cross about this because I have built this subject up from nothing, persuaded girls that it wasn't a boys' subject and I rather like teaching it. Actually the pupils rather like learning it but none of this is relevant.

  The only reason for the change is that Maths is a National Cur subject and they can get away with the ITATC lie to satisfy the Technology National Cur. How any parent is supposed to believe that, for example, Oz (who is not of this century) is teaching Information Technology is beyond me.

  For Olive the clinching argument is that our local rivals Uruk High do not teach IT as a separate subject so we don't need to do so to 'keep up with the Uruks.'

  Friday 6th May

  I had a long chat with Oz about what action I could take to safeguard IT. A brief summary of his answer would be "nothing," which is more or less what I thought.

  He has other things on his mind, in fact. It seems, not to put too fine a point on it, his wife has decided on a Lysistrata strike. By the time he had called her a bitch for the third time, I felt constrained to remark mildly, "What does that make you? A gay dog, or a man who wants to have sex with animals?"

  He was in no mood. He made a quarter-hearted pass at me and I 'made an excuse and left'.

  Saturday 7th May

  James spent an interesting day, and George and Edie an interesting dinner party, listening to me moaning about Information Technology. George does at least possess a computer (rather more expensive than mine, actually) but that is the extent of their involvement.

  I drank rather heavily of the grape.

  Sunday 8th May

  S
talinism is dead, reformism is dead, the metaphor is dead. To hell with Info Tech. I will teach English and like it.

  Like the Poll Tax, my course will linger after its death sentence for two years. A winding-down course is the most difficult to get capitation for of course. If I am going to get any money I will have to do so soon, before they can use the excuse that the course will not be running for much longer and while the hierarchy are still as guilty as they ever get over putting the knife into me.

  Monday 9th May

  This time, I approached a deputy head, Simon (I couldn't quite face Peter), and managed to extract œ100 for Info Tech text books from him. There must be a fair amount of guilt among the hierarchy but I think he regards this as payment in full.

  Oz was off work with a diplomatic hangover. I had to cover one of his classes. I must say if I had to teach that shower every week I would have diplomatic something every Monday.

  There are only twenty of them and they are quite amiable so long as I don't want them to work. They will talk about girlfriends and boyfriends and whether Jackie was really 'doing it' in the cinema: "Fingering isn't doing it, is it, Miss Power?" but they looked in blank astonishment at the equally blank pieces of paper in front of them and handled the pen (they had about one between them) as if unsure of its purpose.

  Perhaps they thought it was a device for 'fingering' in cinemas without the management noticing.

  Tuesday 10th May

  Oz back, full of apologies as ever. He confided that his domestic situation had deteriorated and he had stayed drunk over the weekend in an effort to improve it. The effort seemed to have had only limited success.

  Apart from trying to take some of the pressure off him at work, there is very little we can do to help. It did strike me that if Clair were to say anything at all to Mrs Oz it could only do harm:

  a) "I am not having an affair with your husband." Truthful but fraught with dangers such as rekindling suspicion.

  b) "It's over between Oz and me."

  "Same here."

  c) "What nice curtains."

  "You patronise me at your peril."

  Wednesday 11th May

  Clair stopped me after school with an excited whisper. I assumed that she had more news on the Oz saga but no. It seems that our French assistant had a phone call from a man ostensibly asking for her head. She was short of money and thought it would be a good idea to give some private French lessons. To this end she had put an advertisement in a newsagents' window offering "French lessons by fully qualified mistress."

  She told Clair that a strange man had called about the advert and "asked if I would give him my head." Clair explained matters to her and she has now withdrawn the newsagents' card.

  Thursday 12th May

  The Archimedes has returned with a bill for a hundred pounds and an apparently working disk drive. It worked for all of five minutes. Now we have to send it back to the same firm again.

  I have put the desks in my room back the way they were. They still don't fit: the room is just too small.

  Friday 13th May

  James Birch was absent this morning. His classmates all said it was because it was Friday 13th and he was superstitious. I think not. It is PE on Friday mornings and James has been superstitious about PE for as long as I have known him.

  NUT Meeting at Ruskin House. Amanda has a rather unusual way of laughing. She was telling me about a pupil called Chris Hunt and made a Spoonerism of it. Before I quite knew what was happening she had her head in my lap and a fit of the giggles.

  I have learnt not to be embarrassed in her company. I find I look forward to seeing her every month. Perhaps ... Well just perhaps really.

  Saturday 14th May

  Shopping at Safeways. I still can't bring myself to shop on Sundays even if it isn't my sabbath. I suppose it is the feeling that people will start finding it convenient to have the schools open on Sunday to look after the kids while they go shopping.

  Sunday 15th May

  The boy from the flat next door was in the garden this afternoon, saying,"They never give me any food."

  I had a chat with him and it turned out that what he meant was that he didn't eat his greens at lunchtime. Just as well I didn't ring social services first.

  Monday 16th May

  During period 4 my chronic pharyngitis struck with a vengeance and my voice just vanished. It was the day of the aural control of course. This meant that my set had to listen to me croaking my way through a fairly incomprehensible piece about fjords (a word I can't pronounce at the best of times).

  Marking my group's work revealed that most of them had an impression that it was about a submarine ploughing through a field in Norway. I assume they don't expect anything which happens to them at school to make any sense anyway.

  Tuesday 17th May

  Still part of the silent service. This is a bit of a problem with my form who are anything but silent and find miss being incapacitated in any way highly amusing. It makes me realise why inarticulate people become violent - (or become Secretary of State for Education).

  I decided to do some "Attainment Target 2" with my first years this afternoon - what we used to call silent reading. I see from my copy of the National Cur that they are supposed to be reading the Authorised Version of the Bible and Shakespeare - but I think I will try to wean them off Enid Blyton first.

  Wednesday 18th May

  Saw the doctor, put an armlock on him and eventually got some antibiotics. Still voiceless. Attainment Target 2 is getting a thorough going over. Spent a delightful evening filling in SAT checklists. Must order a set of the Authorised Version of the Bible - that should take care of the total English capitation for a couple of months.

  James eventually took my croaks for mercy seriously, if somewhat grumpily after observing that he didn't see how it could make my throat sore except by a remarkable feat of bioengineering.

  Thursday 19th May

  Arrived in staffroom and started boasting about filling in SAT checklists. It fell to Clair to tell me that they have been redesigned and the new version was at the printers, so all my work was more-or-less wasted.

  The floor of the gym is covered with a canvas on which thousands have scuffed their soiled shoes and which has never been washed. The very best desks - with no grafitti at all: for grafitti might enable candidates to cheat - come out of storage. The exams begin.

  The pendulum has swung from exams to coursework and back again, but even when the coursework swing was at its peak, the annual exam ritual continued.

  Whenever an hour strikes it is greeted with a chorus of cheeping watches. Bless Simon Simonovitch: the only useful thing he ever did was to make the exam invigilation 35 minutes in length where once they were an hour and ten. It means more sessions but more sanity. At least the candidates have something to think about. For us the greatest thrill of the day is when Gavin puts his hand up for some paper.

  We are left to our own thoughts. Is there a God? Has man a future? What percentage of the pupils are dark-haired and wearing trainers? Will the Maths teacher who is relieving me ever arrive? (No).

  Friday 20th May

  Voice completely recovered. Surprised form by bawling them out. Surprised Pat even more as he arrived while I was in mid-flight and he was about to give me a formal reprimand for my failure to put a small "s" in each circle recording the absence of a child who is subsequently provided with a note indicating that he or she was sick and to sign or initial and date the note in question. Unfortunately for Pat, he got muddled in the middle of his explanation and ended up telling me to sign or initial sick children and by the time he had extricated himself my form were in hysterics.

  Saturday 21st May

  Shopping in Safeways. Dwayne was on the checkout. He introduced himself by saying: "See."

  I paused for a moment hoping I would eventually but didn't.

  "Here I am."

  He added by way of explanation. When he realised that more was needed, he added, "You sa
id I'd never get anywhere but here I am."

  Needless to say I congratulated him, there wasn't a trace of irony in his attitude and I suppose it is justified. I can't remember telling Dwayne that he wouldn't get anywhere but one teacher is much the same as another.

  It reminded me of one of my first parents' evenings when a parent was bemoaning his child's poor performance at History and I'd comforted him - so I thought - by confiding that I had had difficulties with History too "and look at me."

  The parent had looked at me. Pityingly. How was I to know that the man was a stockbroker whose taxes, if he ever paid any, would have equalled my income? So I could hardly begrudge Dwayne his moment of triumph.

  Sunday 22nd May

  Why do we bother with the Sunday papers? I spent the day doing third year marking and only got round to reading the papers in the evening.

  Monday 23rd May

  Why do we bother with the daily papers? I don't want to see Tony Blair's face over my porridge. I'd sooner see my porridge over Tony Blair's face.

  Half term. There must be an error of some sort because I seem to have done all my marking and there aren't any reports in the offing. Spent the day reading Emma and contemplating the housework.

  Tuesday 24th May

  There is an error of some sort. Fifth year profiles are due in on Monday and I didn't bring any forms home with me.

  Eventually tracked down Oz. He didn't have any spare forms. Indeed he didn't have any forms because he had been relying on me to tell him the profiles were due.

  Wednesday 25th May

  Got hold of George. Yes he did have some profile slips but when I got there he backed me into a corner and demanded "payment in kind." I didn't feel that kind. Edie was actually in the room at the time but she slipped out. Before she could return with the camcorder, I made an excuse and left.

  Thursday 26th May

  Profiles, profiles everywhere. It takes me back to my very brief sojourn in the civil service. Like all the civil servants I have met - but flat contrary to the stereotype - I hated bureaucracy, especially bureaucracy which prevented me doing my job.