I suppose all girls at every school
can tell stories about their female teachers, about jealousy, resentment, even
hatred, or dare I mention it, infatuation. I am no exception, though
infatuation is not an emotion I experience except involving boys who don’t know
I exist and film stars in films I’ve never seen. Robert Mitchum is the star
who intrigued me most for years and years, though to this day I have never
actually seen him in a movie.
I try to get on with most people, but
as luck will have it, Sarah isn't the only person to live between the bus stop
and school.
From the day she moved into her house
it becomes of the utmost importance to slink past it unseen. This isn't easy.
It hasn’t taken long for Miss Owens to find out exactly when the bus is due,
and she regularly emerges from her front porch exactly as I come into sight.
Sometimes I fool her by taking a detour round the crescent. It makes the walk
to school five minutes longer, but is decidedly more pleasurable, and Sarah's
house is on the corner where the crescent re-joins the road to the railway
bridge we have to cross to get to school. When I don't do take the longer route,
I invariably have the dubious privilege of Miss Owens's company all the way to
school and Sarah avoids walking with us by hiding until we have passed. Miss
Owens bombards me with stories of her glorious past, which (what a happy
coincidence!) is all about her really wanting to be a singer but becoming a
French teacher instead – and a really bad one, at that.
For the whole of my
remaining years at that school and later, if we have the misfortune to bump
into each other in town, I am lectured on the folly of going on the stage. She
doesn't mince her words, either. She tells me over and over again that I am not
talented enough to be a singer or anything else for that matter.
I can hear her now.
“With my talents I
could have conquered the operatic world,” she brags as I practise indifference.
I am a captive audience.
“Now you don’t have
half my voice,” she pants as we ascend the steps of the wooden bridge to cross
the railway lines. “You should not waste your time on dreaming.”
Dreams are my escape
from people like you, I reflect silently.
I never let it show,
but her hurtful remarks distress me, the more so because they remind me of
Mama. I have no weapons against their onslaughts. With Miss Owens, instinct
tells me that I should be cautious. I swallow her provocations in silence and
never tell anyone about them.
I suppose her past
is similar to Mama’s. She, too, allowed herself to be dissuaded by an
over-dominant mother from having a life of her own. Miss Owens is unmarried and
childless. I dare say she was thankful to have a listener to her vitriolic,
pain and frustration, but why me, for heaven’s sake? Miss Owens is an
overbearing teacher she is tied to her old mother. She has no life of her own.
I even feel sorry for her for being such a fool and not doing what she wanted
to do – if she has been telling the truth, that is.
I never ask Miss
Owens what stopped her from being a singer, but one morning she is in a confiding
frame of mind and regales me with a story that certainly sounds convincing and
would be difficult to disprove. Her own unswervingly high opinion of herself,
which has survived her non-career as a singer, is something on the lines that
she was always vocally the next best thing to sliced bread. Fate and
self-denial have been the instruments of non-fulfilment.
On reflection, I don’t believe a single word.
Owl confirmed which song he wants me to sing at his farewell
fete. If he had wanted Miss Owens to sing, he could have asked her, couldn’t
he? As it is, she is jealous of my being chosen. The Piaf song that goes Non,
rien de rien, Non, je ne regrette rien... is now on the official programme
rubbing salt into Miss Owens’s wounds, and there’s way I would back out,
especially as Miss Owens would be sure to jump in.
I wonder what Owl has to regret that he chooses such a song?
Miss Owens has plenty, I’m sure. She offers to coach me for
the event, so confident is she that she knows more about my voice than I do. I
know she would really like to kill me and is only making the offer so she can
get nearer to Owl and maybe have the chance to impress him with her superior
vocal achievements. But much to her chagrin, she has not been asked to grace
the occasion with her expertise, either. I think that is the best part of the
whole enterprise. I can well do without her coaching. French pronunciation
comes easily to me and my musicality is – without doubdt – superior to hers.
The Fête Champètre reveals to me the
folly of this poor woman. Since it is impossible to avoid her, I shall concentrate
on proving to her that she is wrong.
I expect Owl also recognized the
problem and the threat Miss Owens posed, though it was only abstract since she
could do nothing of her own accord to save herself from the ignominy of not
singing at the farewell concert of a member of staff. Miss Owens was really the
only other contender for the limelight and I’m sure none of the other teachers
were bothered who sang what. But Miss Owens was desperate to have her
coming-out as a singer. True, she had shouted her way through the hymns at
assembly to the annoyance of anyone anywhere near, making the small fry giggle
and us slightly older ones wince, while Miss Bunting, our superbly eloquent
English teacher and deputy headmistress, pulled up her right eyebrow almost to
her hairline and turned down the corners of her lips in disgust, the way she
did if you used slovenly grammar. Miss Owens has been regarded with suspicion
by the rest of the teaching staff. She might have taken over the singing at
assembly, but none of us has yet had the dubious privilege of hearing her in
something less pious. And that’s how it’s going to stay, if Owl has anything to
say about it.
Quite oblivious of
any disapproval on Owl’s part, Miss Owens tells me the day before the fete that
she is going to do one of Clara Butt’s big songs especially for Owl – as a
surprise. I am to treat this information confidentially and she only tells me
at all because she wants me to make sure I leave the stage the moment she steps
onto it. She has no manners, no tact, no feelings. In her mind, she is God’s
gift to music.
On the day, she
arrives dressed in a flowing pink robe and has had a new perm, which makes her
hair stand up like a Zulu’s. She is wearing theatrical makeup and even
longer dangly, twinkly earrings than usual. I can see
she is nervous. She fidgets all the way through my chansons, which are received
enthusiastically, especially the final Gallic
Un fiacre allait,
trottinant …….
which is a French
Knees up Mother Brown song. Owl wipes the tears from his eyes and the fog from
his specs and sings along to the refrains.
The party is drawing
to a close and Miss Owens is still champing at the bit. She is scrunching her
rolled up music between scarlet-tipped fingers and when Owl gets up to thank
everyone she marches hastily onto the stage and gets poised to sing.
Owl ignores her.
After thanking everyone effusively for coming he gives me the signal to start
the ballad to Bonny Prince Charlie 'Will ye no come back again' a capella,
which we have planned but not announced. I kept Owl’s secret, not just hers.
On reflection, I
suppose it was all a bit awful, but the satisfaction of seeing Miss Owens’s
crestfallen jowls is all the reward I shall ever need. Her crimson lips take on
a snarl as she pushes and shoves her way unsung and indignant through the crowd
and out of sight. That’s when it dawns on me just why he insisted I told no
one. The unmitigated triumph of this final coup is shared by all.
And then it’s all over.
Why do the best ones leave us at the mercy of the worst
ones? Owl’s French lessons have been strenuous but productive. He has deserted
us for greener pastures, and what follows is a parody.
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