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.