Miss Jones, the witch, the ogress,
the buck-toothed dragon, has raised the alarm.
When I arrive at our house, chilled
and now a bit worried about the consequences of my adventure, I am embraced
lightly and smacked hard, given a hot bath and a milky drink and put to bed.
No questions are to be asked until
next morning.
Am I asked if I want to go into a
different classroom? Am I asked how I am subject to daily humiliation by
the witch-dragon? Am I asked how it feels to sleep behind a tomb-stone?
Next day an enquiry is also held at
the school, at which the ogress, the witch, the buck-toothed dragon, has to
justify sending four year olds unsupervised into the corridor to cogitate. She
is severely reprimanded for not taking proper care of us. But she isn’t removed
from the school, unfortunately.
And I have to face the music
everywhere.
Subtly, but unmistakably the
witch-dragon penalises me.
I have betrayed her trust.
(What about my trust?)
Retribution is inevitable. There
will be no mercy shown.
I am learning other lessons in her
classroom. I am a scapegoat for her carelessness and lack of compassion and I
learn what it is like to be on the receiving end.
Is this what adults always do when
they make a mistake? Find someone to blame for it?
Every night I hum tunes into my
pillow, ponder over why some tunes are like waltzes and others like marches and
drift off into a world where there are no hateful witches and dragons or
hypocritical adults or snivelling George, but only bright sunny days and
gardens, swings and roundabouts, picture books and water paints, baby animals,
pianos and the sticky buns I am partial to.
One evening, Dada, still shaken by
recent events, says something that torpedoes me back into consciousness. I have
been sitting on the fourth stair from the bottom listening in to Mama and Dada
as they continue their interminable discussion about my break-out. And I have
been nodding off, because they seem to be repeating everything from the night
before.
"Well, of one thing I’m sure.
That child must have a guardian angel. How did she manage to cross busy roads
with getting knocked down? And how did she miss being bullied by those ruffians
from Albert Street?"
A guardian angel.
What are angels? Where do they live?
What do they do all day? Does Dada know?
The old church is in the main street
of our town. The cemetery is even older and even more dilapidated than the
church, which is itself in advanced stages of neglect, except for the soldiers’
memorial, which was added soon after the war to end all wars, which didn’t do
anything of the kind. Grownups are always making things up.
There are often appeals for money to
restore the church to its former glory. The organ needs new pipes; the pews
need new cushions; the windows need new glass. The vicar is a faceless fanatic
with a massive chip on his shoulder. He doesn’t like intruders, so the barbed
wire left over from that war is still nailed to the tops of the railings to
keep the heathen out. The churchyard is locked at dusk. He doesn’t care that it
is the only safe playground for the children from the back streets. He doesn’t
care about anything, now he has finally stopped believing in anything. He just
goes through the motions of leading a religious life in public, while indulging
in numerous unspeakable (but much discussed) vices behind closed doors.
Four year olds absorb and recycle
everything that is uttered in their vicinity, and I am no exception. Thus I get
to hear that there has been some talk about choir boys getting into trouble and
having to stay in the church until late at night or next day, and being upset
and stuff like that.
"What’s a choirboy?" I ask.
"A singer in a church," I
am told. "Go and play!"
I pretend to play with my new teddy,
but I can still hear them warn each other about my big ears flapping. So I put
teddy back to bed, run into the bathroom and climb on a stool to examine my
ears in the mirror above the wash basin. They aren’t flapping at all. I can’t
make them move, let alone flap. Mama’s shocking pink lipstick is lying on the
little shelf underneath the mirror. I unscrew it and paint my face the way she
does hers. I pucker my lips then flatten them against each other, making a
little popping noise. Lipstick tastes funny, but looks quite amazing. I press a
childish kiss onto Dada’s shaving mirror. Then I notice his shaving cream and
open that, too. It’s like snow, and if you press the nozzle long enough you get
a great cloud everywhere.
But Mama’s lipstick tastes better.
I’m lucky. Dada sees what I’ve done before Mama has time to.
He whispers that I should not do that because it annoys Mama, but he is smiling
as he clears up the mess. I expect he is taken with my enhanced appearance. My
hair is standing on ends from the shaving foam and my lips are as red as blood.
Mama never finds out.
Gradually, school improves. Sometimes
I am almost glad to see the witch-dragon because my baby brother has been very
poorly and is just about recovering despite all predictions to the contrary.
Neither Mama nor Dada really have much time to be bothered with me. But the
witch-dragon is forced to look after us all during school hours and now we are
no longer allowed to stand in the corridor there can be no repeat of that
humiliation, whatever we get up to. We make her life quite hard at times.
There is a tacit agreement between us to be obstinate whenever possible. Miss
Jones sets us tasks and goes for a smoke. You can pull the blackboard down to
make the top accessible. We practise our letters in chalk. Did you know that if
you tread on chalk it turns into powder?
I am moving up to the junior school
soon, and will never, ever, ever have to witness the witch-dragon snorting and
cavorting again, or listen to her coughing over her cigarette, or walk
alongside her rusty bicycle. I’ll pretend I’ve never met her. No one will
connect us if I keep quiet about the relationship.
At least, not at school they won’t.
At home it’s different and Mama calls it scandalous. It’s almost a skeleton in
the cupboard, what the witch does at weekends. She takes her clothes off,
that’s what.
"If people want to stare, let
them!" she always says, as she tiptoes her topless way to the sun-soaked
meadow next to the farmhouse, weighed down with her deckchair, ashtray (don’t
drop ash on the carpet) and library books.
"I don’t care. I don’t ask them
to look at me. I take no notice of them," she snips.
The farm lads who come to help with
the dairy or the harvest take good care not to look overtly in her direction as
they pass. She is thin and scraggy, walks with dragging feet to keep her
fur-fronted mules on, and invariably has a cigarette smouldering away between
her ruby-painted lips. When she has found a spot exposed to the sun (and everything
else) she unfolds the deckchair and plonks herself down into it. It’s always on
its lowest position, so she half sprawls, and half lies in it. If she catches
anyone gazing at her, she jumps up in her toplessness and shouts at them to
clear off. She never bothers to cover herself up. Shameful!
She’d make a good scarecrow, I
decide. No bird in his right mind would want to come anywhere near her. But
witch-dragon’s a better name.
Sometimes one of the boys borrows a
telescope. Then they all take it in turns to spy on her from a safe distance,
though what pleasure that affords them is a mystery to me. But at least that
way they don’t get caught.
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