Mrs Wilcox

I have come to watch Mrs Wilcox teach one of her GCSE English groups. She is at the door, greeting her ‘guests’ and directing them to their -allotted - places. “Blazer on Mr Squire!” she calls to one of the latecomers, a tall lad who has thrown his jacket over the back of a chair and missed. Immediately his face screws up in a frenzy of irritation. “What!” he shouts. “Argh! Why? It’s stupid. It’s pathetic!” He glances around at the gathering interest and feels a surge of power, “I’m going to make a complaint to the Head about you!”  Mrs Wilcox is unfazed. Her tirade of verbal herding continues unabated, firmly but calmly guiding the group into their places, passing out books and writing the date on the board. “Are you?” she asks absent-mindedly, “Off you go then Jake. I’m not sure I’m going to lose my job for asking students to follow rules though. Better straighten your tie up before you get there and get your blazer on, Mr Pryce won’t be pleased to see you without it.” The humour is lost in the general melee to all but a couple of members of the group who smile across at each other. Jake stands outside the room for a minute then slopes back to his place. 

I look at the poem she has to teach today and shudder at the thought of how, in just forty minutes, she is going to manage to get them to fathom the synthesis of complex feminism with the tradition of the fairy tale let alone to reflect on how as a society we continue to conform to convention, although she has  already, albeit unintentionally, stumbled across conformity and convention in action in the prelude to the lesson. She reads through, Rapunzstiltskin’ by Liz Lochhead, a poem positively aching with enough meaning to fill a dissertation to bulging, but when she has finished she looks up to a bank of blank faces. She takes a deep breath and the analysis commences:

“‘& just when our maiden had got good & used to her isolation, stopped daily expecting to be rescued, had come to almost love her tower’ What do you think about that then Serena?” she asks. I know Serena from my previous school. With her long dark hair and gorgeous eyes she could be that princess. 

“Do you fancy that? Stuck up in a tower? Is that something you’d like do you think?” 

Serena was a long-term school refuser and part-time selective mute and the look on her face is masking any clues to the thoughts she might have. For a moment, she looks as if she might be readying herself for an answer but her expression seems to indicate that she still either hasn’t a clue what she has just been asked, hasn’t a clue whether she’s like to be ‘stuck up in a tower’ or, in fact, quite fancies getting away from it all in a quiet tower and hasn’t a clue why anyone would think it anything but desirable.

“She’d probably like it...” chips in Jake, “...wouldn’t have to talk!”

“No T.V.” points out Mrs Wilcox in an attempt to prompt further contemplation, “No music, no mobile phone...” 

“No homework?” ventures Gethin “I’d like it!”

“Would you Gethin? Perhaps we can arrange it for you! What about you Nikita? You’re a girl who knows her own mind, would you like to be trapped up in a tower, no friends to talk to?”

“Dunno.” Nikita muses. “Not really I suppose.” she adds helpfully.

“So there she was, humming & pulling all the pins out of her chignon, throwing him all the usual lifelines’ Do you think she wanted to be rescued? Why might she want to be rescued? Would you want to be rescued?” Mrs Wilcox probes.

“Not really though; she probably liked being away from her parents, no nagging or washing up.” Jake offers.

“That might be true yes,” Mrs Wilcox concedes, then introduces the idea she’s pushing for via a third party opinion in the form of an anecdote: “I know my son might say that but he wouldn’t like to be alone, he hates not being able to go out or play computer games or text his friends or listen to his iPod. Most young people like to be with their friends don’t they? Do you think she wants to be rescued?” she appeals again, scanning the room hopefully.

Gethin’s hand shoots up.

“Mrs Wilcox?”

“Yes Gethin?”

“How old is your son?”

“My son, he’s fourteen”

“Fourteen? Does he go to this school?”

“No he doesn’t.”

He pauses for thought. “Where does he go?”

“He goes to St Alfred’s thank you very much!”

Gethin considers her answer further, his face puzzled momentarily then animated. “Why doesn’t he go there?” Gethin continues, convinced he’s on to something. He’s found an angle - the teaching here isn’t good enough for her son.

“Why doesn’t he go there?” she echoes “Well, we live in the boundary for St Alfs and are on the bus route, if that’s alright with you Gethin!”

“No, it’s not!” says Gethin smirking at his peers.

“It’s not? I didn’t think it would be - for you - somehow!” she counters.

Gethin has run out of steam, his shoulders droop and he slumps back in his seat. He has been steam-rollered by Mrs Wilcox who seamlessly returns to the job in hand.

“soon, he was shimmying in & out every other day as though

he owned the place, bringing her the sex manuals & skeins of silk...”

Jake’s hand shoots upwards, Mrs Wilcox braces herself for the inevitable.

“Yes Jake?” she asks resigned.

“What’s ski...skens...ske-ins...oh, I don’t know, whatever it is...of silk?”

She raises an eyebrow then looks down at the book and takes a breath. “Skeins? Skeins are coils of...”

“Why does he bring her sex manuals?” Gethin overrides

“Glad we’ve got your interest back Gethin.”

“Is this poem a bit rude for school Miss?”

“Is it too rude for you Gethin?”

“No!”

“No? Well what are you moaning about then?”

“It might be for Serena Miss.”

“It might be Gethin, yes. ‘All the better to see you with my dear?’ he hazarded. She screamed, cut off her hair. ‘Why, you’re beautiful?’ he guessed tentatively.’ ‘Hazarded’ ‘Tentatively’? What do you think the poet is saying about the answers given by the Prince?”

“Errr. Is he trying to guess the right answer?” hazards Jake with no trace of irony.

“Yes it sounds like it doesn’t it?” Mrs Wilcox says encouragingly, shunning the opportunity for a bit of sarcasm. “What do you think the poet is saying about modern relationships between men and women?”

“That she don’t know how to do it? She needs a manual!” says Jake shooting a glance over at Nikita.

“That men are pathetic losers who don’t know how to treat a woman and all they’re after is sex.” retaliates Nikita meaningfully.

“Spot on! Well done, that’s just what Liz Lochhead is saying, now back that up with the evidence” says Mrs Wilcox, indicating the text in front of her, “Find a quote Nikita.”

“Look around you! The room’s full of them Miss!” she narrows her eyes at Jake. 

Mrs Wilcox hurries on. ‘No, No, No!’ she shrieked & stamped her foot so hard it sank six cubits through the floorboards.’” 

“That sounds like my mum!” Nikita mouths to Serena. 

“Sounds like you more like!” quips Jake

“Fuck off you retard!” Nikita suddenly roars.

“Settle.” instructs Mrs Wilcox “We’re nearly finished.” she pushes her glasses back up her nose and returns to the poem.

“‘I love you?’ he came up with, as she finally tore herself in two.’”

“Miss?”

“Yes Gethin.”

“How did she tear herself in two?”

“That’s a good question Gethin.” says Mrs Wilcox, staying - somehow-  perfectly intact.

Lance - part 2

It isn’t long before Lance is transferred to my tutor group; we are moving to a vertical grouping system for Year 7-9 and the fact that Lance doesn’t seem to have encountered much trouble in English has prompted the Head of Year to suggest he is taken under ‘Beth Werrett’s wing’. And so, ironically, having managed to keep Lance out of detention in my subject I end up having to keep him in detention as one of my tutees Chantal. This is not school policy, it’s my policy. I have communicated to his teachers that if he is too disruptive to teach he is to be escorted not to Time Out but next door to me. And, in turn, my tutees know that if they end up coming to me and ‘wasting my time’ in following things up they will do the time after school.

And so it is that Lance is with me on a Friday after school, alongside a couple of Y7s who haven’t done their homework and ‘My Boy’ Jack a Y8 with potential to go either way. I call him ‘My Boy’ because he has been with me since Y7 and I have tried to foster a sense of belonging and responsibility in him. He came up from his primary school with a terrible reputation and so far I have, with the support of his teachers, managed to keep him on the straight and narrow. Tony, my colleague and friend next door,  and I have embraced the strategy of familiarity through semantics. It is amazing just how effective it is. We always call difficult pupils ‘our’ as is the West Country way and we have incorporated it in to our banter with the children. “Ms Werrett, I’ve had ‘Our Josh’ this morning and you wouldn’t believe the amount of work he did - you’d be impressed.” says Tony, beaming at ‘Our Josh’. Or on duty, as a group approaches, ‘Here she comes! It’s our Michaela! Nice to see her smiling!’ Michaela smiles on cue, out of embarrassment if not secret delight. 

‘My Boy’ Jack slinks in to the room, throwing Lance a sideways glance. It’s interesting body language, not direct, confrontational eye contact just a shy ‘shufty’. Lance is top dog. Lance is just the sort of role model Jack has been waiting for a personal introduction to and I am wary of them striking up any kind of allegiance. They get on quietly with their tasks and I work my way through a list chores until I have run out things to do in the classroom and have a stack of things that need delivering elsewhere, photocopying or picking up. I look at the boys working and am reluctant to leave them but I must get on. Eventually I decide to take Lance with me. I ask Jack to help the Y7s if they get stuck and instruct them to ask him if they do and then set off up to the Maths corridor with Lance in tow. 

“So what are you doing tonight then?” I ask “Anything exciting lined up?” He looks a bit taken off guard and then composes himself and replies “Oh, you know, I’ll probably go down the pub with me bother and his mates.” 

“How old’s your brother?” 

“Eighteen.” 

“Oh yes. Do you like going out with them?” 

“Yeah.” he says unconvincingly “We’ll probably get drunk and have a laugh.” he continues. He is grinning but his mouth is weak and his pale blue eyes are flat. I get a flash of him in the pub, the butt of his brother’s mates jokes and pranks, drinking a shandy perhaps, a Billy Casper to the big bad Judd. I don’t know where it comes from but the vision and the feeling is fast, almost blinding like a sudden shaft of bright sunlight or even the sudden burst of noise and light through the heavy pub door on a cold dark night. And then the door closes. Lance bolsters his reply with further tales of boys bravado but I sense he knows I have seen his vulnerability.

In English, by contrast, Lance seems more settled. He has stopped his silent, observation of my every move and has joined Danny and Chantal in answering questions though he doesn’t share their conscientious note-taking. He can be king in my class, not the little brother, he knows his stuff but likes to pretend he doesn’t, he stretches and postures and tries to feign nonchalance but his eyes twinkle and he can’t resist to tease. 

“There's been a death in the opposite house” I read

“As lately as to-day.

I know it by the numb look

Such houses have alway.

Let’s just look at the opening what’s happening here?” I ask.

“Somebody’s died...?” David postulates.

“Yes...and...”

There is silence

“Why are the houses described as being ‘numb’, that’s an usual description for a house isn’t it, ‘numb’,why has Emily Dickinson chosen that word do you think?”

“I know this sounds stupid but...” starts Chantal

“Yes?”

“No!” she folds in embarrassment.

“Go on, try it out.” I coax.

“No, it’s stupid Miss.” she says, peeping from behind her fingers “Forget it.”

“I said lots of stupid things in my English lessons.” I admit, “Don’t worry.”

“Well, is that, like how the people are feeling, numb? After the person dying like?”

‘Good!” 

It’s hard to believe how far this class have come, from raving madness to my mini scholars.

“And what about the next section...

The neighbors rustle in and out,

The doctor drives away.

A window opens like a pod,

Abrupt, mechanically;

Somebody flings a mattress out,--

The children hurry by;

...what’s going on there do you think? Lance?”

“Err...” he takes a long pause. “...are the neighbours looting the place because some bloke has died...?”

I look at him and know he knows, then have to turn to the board to suppress a smile under the guise of adding another note to the class brainstorm. His wit has bypassed the new-found seriousness of the class but it’s all I can do to hold in a blurt of laughter.

On Monday there’s a message from the office to see whether Lance is in registration. It’s not unusual for him to be late and so I am unconcerned until I find out that his mother has been in to the office and the police. Lance hasn’t been home all night. 

At twenty past ten, as Year 7 are settling down to writing their Lighthouse poems up for display, I spot Lance moseying past my “In” door, on his way to the refectory. I slip out quickly. “Hey! Come here!” He diverts my way. He looks tired and even more pale than usual, his eyes are dark and slightly red. “Where have you been?” I ask “Everyone’s looking for you. What’s this about you not going home last night?”

“Oh, I stayed over Toby’s”

“Didn’t you think to tell your mum? She’s been worried sick.” 

“She didn’t even know until this morning, she wasn’t even there last night, she staying over with some bloke”. And now he doesn’t seem vulnerable, he doesn’t seem angry, he seems just resigned to life. His mother coming in has been an embarrassment, an unexpected and inconvenient intervention.

“You had better get up to the office and at least tell them you’re here and safe.”

He wheels round and starts towards the office.

“Oi!” I call, he stops and turns around, his rucksack sliding off his left shoulder.

“Wanna hug!” I smile.

He smirks and then trots off.