Last Writes (2 page)

Henry shook his head, and gave his attention to the marmalade.

‘He was ever so fierce. He really frightened all of us in the office. Wouldn’t let us talk while we were working …’

‘Quite right, too,’ mumbled Henry, his mouth full of toast. ‘Young girls need keeping in order.’

‘So, when we wanted to say something to each other without him knowing, we would type the message in a code of our own and pass it over to the next typist.’

‘You did, did you?’ said Henry. ‘What if he saw what you’d written?’

‘We’d say it was only the office junior practising.’

‘Adding lying to deception,’ said Henry in mock solemnity. ‘Girls will be girls, I suppose. And what was this great wheeze of yours?’

‘We typed the next letter along to the one we meant.’

He stared at her, produced the message he’d been poring over most of the night and asked, half in fun, ‘So what letters are next to
N
and
P
?’

She wrinkled her nose. ‘From memory
M
and
N
?’

‘That’s no good then.’

‘Wait a minute, wait a minute. If it was the last letter on the line that we wanted to use, we would go back to the beginning of the line. That would make
N
mean
M
.’

‘And what about
P
?’

‘Oh, dear, that’s no good. That’s the last letter on the top row so you’d have to come back to
Q
at the beginning. “MQ” doesn’t mean anything.’ Wendy Witherington looked quite crestfallen.

‘Wait a minute, Wen. Suppose whoever typed this message knew this little game and was afraid other people might know it as well, what would he …’

‘Or she.’

‘Or she do to make it more secure?’

‘Well, she could alternate right and left, I suppose …’

‘Or left and right,’ said Henry, seizing a pencil. ‘Let’s see … Left first would still give us
M
, right would give us
O
, then it’s
A
and
Y
.’

‘That would give you
S
and
T
,’ said Wendy with growing interest.

‘That’s “most”…’ said Henry.

‘Stay where you are, Henry, and I’ll go and get my old typewriter.’

‘At least that’s an English word,’ said Henry.

‘Go on,’ she urged, as soon as she came back with an elderly Imperial machine.

‘
Y
and
T
,’ he said.

‘
U
and
R
,’ said his sister, scanning the keyboard. ‘I bet that’s going to be “urgent”.’

‘Quick,’ said Henry with mounting excitement. Forgetting all about the Official Secrets Act, he pushed the piece of paper in front of her. ‘Do these letters, too.’

It did not take her long. ‘Once a typist, always a typist,’ she said, hitting the keys, first to the left and then to the right of the letters on the paper.

Henry stood behind her, looking over her shoulder as a message appeared. He read aloud.

Henry pushed the marmalade to one side and made for the telephone in the hall.

He was back in minutes. ‘Sorry, Wen, but I’ll have to go straight back to London.’

She nodded her understanding.

‘Tell the children it was a case of “Left right, left right, attention …” and that I’ll be back as soon as I can.’

‘That was Brenda Murgatroyd ringing from the hospital,’ said Mrs Watson as she replaced the telephone receiver on its cradle. ‘It’s just as we thought. Poor Mrs Burrell has broken her wrist after all …’

The headmaster groaned aloud.

‘She’s been X-rayed and …’ finished the school secretary, ‘now she’s waiting to have a plaster put on.’

‘Go on,’ he urged. ‘Tell me how long …’

‘Brenda said that the Accident and Emergency Department is particularly busy today …’

‘How long?’ he asked again, running his hands through what was left of his hair.

‘Brenda reckoned they’d be at the hospital for another three hours at least for the plaster to be put on – let alone dry – and then she’ll have to take Mrs Burrell home before she comes back into school.’

The headmaster groaned again and pulled a copy of the
school timetable across his desk towards him. He studied it for the dozenth time. ‘Mr Collins …’

‘Leading a school party over at the Greatorex Museum,’ said Mrs Watson. She cleared her throat and said, not for the first time, ‘If you remember Mrs Martindale and Mr Legge are with him there, too.’

The headmaster roundly anathematised all school visits.

‘Yes, headmaster,’ said Mrs Watson kindly, aware that it was the absence of staff from the school and not the presence of their pupils at the Greatorex Museum that was causing the problem today.

‘Mr Fletcher …’ said the headmaster with the air of a man clutching at straws.

‘Mr Fletcher is looking after all the lower forms which aren’t at the Museum,’ the secretary reminded him. ‘I don’t think there’s anyone else left in the school who could do that.’ She paused and added significantly, ‘Or would.’

‘Ms Dilnot?’ He suggested tentatively.

‘Certainly not, Headmaster.’ Mrs Watson pursed her lips. ‘Ms Dilnot would be a most unsuitable person to take Mrs Burrell’s Relationships class at the present time. Not only is she herself in an advanced state of pregnancy but I understand that it is quite widely known both in and out of the staffroom that she is not prepared to name the father of her baby.’

‘Really?’ said the headmaster. ‘She’s very pretty, too, of course.’

Mrs Watson said distantly that she didn’t see what that had to do with it and in any case that just left Miss Wilkins free to take Mrs Burrell’s Relationships class, which she was sure the headmaster has known all along, hadn’t he?

Miss Wilkins was the oldest member of his staff and quite the most strait-laced. It was a brave colleague who swore in the staffroom when she was there, let alone told a doubtful joke.

‘For two pins,’ he said wildly, ‘I’d take it myself.’

‘The governors would think there was something about their meeting that you wished to avoid, Headmaster,’ the secretary said at once. She looked out of the window at the car park. ‘And they’re already arriving for it.’

‘I’m afraid the governors would put an even worse construction on my absence than that,’ said the headmaster realistically. ‘They’re a worldly-wise lot. All right, ask Miss Wilkins to come and see me, will you? Although heaven only knows what Mrs Burrell’s class will say when they hear that it’s Miss Wilkins who’s going to take them for Relationships instead of her. If Miss Wilkins is prepared to do it, that is.’

‘I understand,’ said Mrs Watson astringently, ‘that Mrs Burrell’s class have already worked out that she’s the only member of staff free to take them this afternoon.’ Not being on the teaching staff gave the secretary better links with the politics of the playground than anyone else at the school except the caretaker.

‘They’re not slow at calculation when it suits them.’ A lifetime in teaching had turned the headmaster into a cynic.

‘I don’t know how Miss Wilkins will feel about it,’ went on the school secretary, ‘but I am told that they are positively looking forward to her taking the class.’

‘That must be a first,’ said the headmaster, a bitter man, too, by virtue of his profession.

‘Mathematics is not a subject that lends itself to
popularity,’ said Mrs Watson moderately. ‘Not in the ordinary way – now “Relationships” is a different cup of tea altogether.’

‘Let us just hope,’ said the headmaster piously, ‘that they don’t try to teach Miss Wilkins anything that they know already and she doesn’t.’

Miss Wilkins accepted the assignment in her customary calm, neutral way. ‘Of course, Headmaster. I can quite see the difficulty. Poor Mrs Burrell. Naturally, I don’t know what she had in mind for today’s lesson …’

‘The prevention of teenage pregnancy seems high on everyone’s agenda these days,’ offered the headmaster, unusually tentative.

‘I take it you mean its avoidance?’

‘Yes, Miss Wilkins, of course I do.’ The headmaster seldom welcomed the arrival of the Chairman of the Governors as he did then. ‘Now, you must excuse me.’

If Miss Wilkins noticed the preternatural silence obtaining in the classroom as she entered she gave no sign of having done so. Nor did she react to the banana placed conspicuously on the desk before her. Instead, she regarded it for a long moment and then reached in silence for her handbag on the floor beside her. As she bent down, her head for a moment out of sight, a look of pure glee appeared on the face of he who had put the banana there, an unruly boy called Melvin. His boon companion, a gawky lad named Ivan, could not resist a titter. The girls remained quiet but watchful.

Miss Wilkins took something that was now in her hand and placed it on the desk beside the banana.

It was an apple.

‘I trust the symbolism of the fruit I have brought with me will not be lost on the class,’ she began in her usual hortatory manner. ‘We will come back to it presently when we discuss the undesirability of teenage pregnancy.’

‘And the banana, miss?’ said Melvin cheekily.

‘A valuable source of potassium,’ said Miss Wilkins, failing to blush as Melvin had hoped. ‘Now, there are two things I wish to say first – one to the boys and one to the girls.’

‘Girls first, miss, please,’ said Tracy, a precocious blonde. She twirled the ends of some strands of her hair across her face, peeping out behind them in a provocative manner somewhat beyond her years. ‘We’re more important now.’

‘The most valuable thing, then, that all girls need to know and remember,’ said Miss Wilkins, adjusting her glasses, and leaving aside the question of the improvement in women’s rights for the time being, ‘is that the human male is not a monogamous animal.’ She swung round in her chair and pointed. ‘Perhaps Ivan will tell us what the word “monogamous” means.’

Ivan stumbled with some inaudible words for a while before having to admit that he did not know.

‘I have met very few men who do,’ said Miss Wilkins briskly. ‘Perhaps Marion can tell us?’

Marion was a sentimental little girl, inclined to think well of everyone and everything. ‘Like it says in the Marriage Service, miss, keeping only to each other.’

‘Not having it off with anyone else,’ amplified Melvin.

‘Swans mate for life,’ offered Harry, the class swot.

‘It’s the other sort of birds that we want to know about, Harry,’ Melvin sniggered. ‘The two-legged sort.’

‘Swans only have two legs,’ began Harry combatively.

‘Swans have relationships, too, don’t they, miss?’ an earnest girl called Dorinda put in. ‘We had that in Classical History. There was someone called Leda and she …’

‘So it is said, Dorinda,’ said Miss Wilkins firmly, ‘but I am afraid we are not dealing with myth and legend this afternoon. We are talking about established fact.’

‘I’ve had three fathers,’ said a pert girl at the back of the class. She paused for a moment’s thought and then added, ‘That’s up to now …’

‘I saw
Swan Lake
at Christmas,’ put in another girl. ‘The swan died. It was ever so sad, but lovely if you know what I mean.’

‘Ugh, that’s ballet for you,’ said a boy at the back.

‘But then he turned into a prince.’

‘A poofter …’ said the same boy.

‘No,’ said the girl seriously. ‘A prince.’

‘What I myself have also noticed,’ said Miss Wilkins, leaving aside the distinction, ‘is something that you girls will find very hard to take when it happens to you in later life, as it probably will.’

‘Middle-aged spread?’ offered a plump girl called Maureen. ‘My mum says it’s having babies that does it.’

‘Although,’ proceeded Miss Wilkins as if the girl had not spoken, ‘it is not what I could call a natural law in the sense that the human male not being monogamous is one.’ She coughed. ‘I think I should call it more of a personal observation, though I understand it has been recorded in cats, too.’ Her head shot up. ‘Yes, Melvin, I am well aware that some men and some alley cats have a lot in common. You don’t have to tell us.’

‘What is it that we’ll find hard to take, miss?’ asked Dorinda anxiously.

‘That when your husband of many years leaves you for a younger woman …’

‘My father called it trading Mummy in for a younger model,’ said Charlene, ‘like you do with cars. I don’t like her. He sells them anyway.’

‘Cars or models?’ asked Melvin.

‘Model cars, I expect,’ chimed in Ivan.

‘Cars, silly,’ said Charlene with composure.

‘When he does that,’ continued Miss Wilkins smoothly, ‘I think you will find that what you are pleased to call the newer model will also be a woman rather further down the social totem pole than the one whom he married.’

‘That fits my father’s new wife to a T,’ said Charlene, looking up at Miss Wilkins, surprised and respectful. ‘My mum says she’s just a toerag.’

Miss Wilkins paused and said pedantically, ‘I cannot explain this phenomenon except that it is also noticeable in the behaviour of tomcats. They will mate first with a pedigree queen, have a litter or two …’

‘Or four …’ put in a boy.

‘And then mate with any old stray tabby cat,’ said Miss Wilkins calmly. ‘I understand that having this second string to your bow is to do with the preservation of the species on the grounds that the progeny from the lower-scale alliance is likely to be tougher than that of the pedigree match.’

‘Survival of the fittest,’ said Harry. ‘We did that in biology.’

‘Hybrid vigour,’ said a boy at the back.

‘Darwin and the descent of man,’ said a girl.

‘We did that in religious studies,’ somebody contradicted her.

‘The Creation and all that …’

‘My dad hadn’t better have any more children …’ exploded Charlene suddenly, light dawning. ‘We’re poor enough as it is.’

‘However,’ said Miss Wilkins firmly, ‘your desertion by your husbands is still in the far future. Today we are concerned with the more immediate …’

‘What is it that boys need to know?’ interrupted a copper-haired boy, known throughout the school as Eric the Red.

‘You won’t like it,’ said Miss Wilkins.

‘Go on, miss,’ urged a tall youth, grinning. ‘We can take it.’

‘Very well.’ Miss Wilkins swept the class with her steady gaze. ‘Boys need to know that in the mating game, in spite of what they think to the contrary, it is the girls who choose them.’

‘No, they don’t.’ Melvin cast a glance in the direction of Tracy. Eyes cast down behind her long blonde hair, she responded only with an enigmatic smile. He said, ‘I choose the girls I want.’

Miss Wilkins smiled, too. ‘You think you do, Melvin. That’s all.’

‘And then you try to get them in the club,’ said Charlene, regarding the boy without affection.

Harry glanced anxiously at Miss Wilkins, but she was leaning forward, looking interested. ‘So what do you do then, Melvin?’ she asked. ‘After you’ve chosen them?’

He pushed his chest forward and his shoulders back and opened his mouth to speak.

‘He tries to have his own way,’ muttered a girl in the class first. ‘More’s the pity.’

‘You don’t have to let anyone do that,’ said Miss Wilkins. ‘It’s a free country.’

‘I show them who’s boss,’ bragged Melvin.

‘But if you have a baby,’ said another girl, ‘you can get a council flat.’

‘And benefit …’ said Marion.

‘That is not enough to see you through twenty years of solitary motherhood,’ said Miss Wilkins. ‘Financially or emotionally.’

‘But they can’t make you marry the father, can they, miss?’ asked Dorinda.

‘Would you want to?’ enquired Miss Wilkins with interest.

Charlene favoured Melvin with a cold stare. ‘Me, I wouldn’t.’

‘And would the marriage last if you did?’

‘Not with some people it wouldn’t,’ said Charlene with spirit.

‘You could be right there,’ agreed Miss Wilkins. ‘A boy who would do that to a girl isn’t likely to cherish her for long, is he?’

Tracy came out from behind her hair long enough to take a cool look at Melvin.

‘So what about the baby then?’ asked Miss Wilkins.

The plump girl called Maureen shrugged her shoulders. ‘You get to keep it if you want to, though I don’t want to get fat …’

‘You can always have it adopted,’ said Tracy nonchalantly.

Miss Wilkins picked up the apple between her two cupped hands and held it out in front of her. She looked down at it without speaking for so long that the class began to get a little uneasy. Then she said softly, ‘What do you suppose happens to you, Tracy, if you have a baby and then have it adopted – not what happens to the baby – but to you?’

‘Dunno, miss.’

‘Think.’

‘Well … nothing, miss.’

‘Can anybody else think of what happens to a girl who has a baby and then never sees it again?’ Miss Wilkins looked round expectantly.

‘You can always get to see it if you want to,’ said Charlene.

‘No,’ Miss Wilkins corrected her. ‘He or she can get to see you but only if it is their wish. Not if you want to.’

‘Not never?’

‘Never,’ said Miss Wilkins, trying to remember who it was on the staff had the misfortune to be trying to teach the English language to this class. ‘So how do you imagine you are going to get through the years aware that your son or daughter is growing up without even knowing what you look like?’

‘I read a book where that happened,’ remarked Dorinda. ‘It was ever so sad. When the lady said “Dead and never called me Mother”, I cried.’