In a Class of His Own (10 page)

She looked at me, her
interest suddenly focused. “Victorian you say? Which decade? She
was on the throne for a long time you know.”

Of
course, how could I have forgotten? Mum had taught history for a
short while before she’d got married and had Andy
and me.

“I’m
not sure. I don’t think it matters,” I said vaguely, hoping I was
right. Ann hadn’t specified exactly what part of Victorian history
we were concentrating on. I’d been so busy at work that I hadn’t
had time to even think about what sort of dress I could wear. It had
hardly been at the top of my list of priorities, although it had got
the rest of the female members of the staff in a tizzy.

“Well
honestly Nicola, you ought to know. It makes a big difference to the
style of frock.” Mum put her teacup down on the mock mahogany
occasional table with a chink. “I was watching that lovely
programme the other night – you know, the one set in the north?
It’s ever so romantic and they wear such lovely dresses in it.”

A
dreamy expression stole over her face. Obviously my mother, in common
with the rest of the female TV viewing public had fallen for the male
lead in the current BBC costume drama. I’d managed to catch the
second episode and had joined in with the fevered discussion in the
staffroom on the following Monday morning. Janice had kept going on
about how dark and brooding the lead actor was. She insisted that he
was the spitting image of our esteemed headmaster.

“Mmmm”
murmured Mum thoughtfully. “The programme’s set in the 1840s –
or 1850s. I can’t remember exactly. No matter though, I might have
something that would do.” And then she rose with a sudden energy
that I hadn’t seen in her for a long time. “Let’s have a look
in the attic. You never know there might be something in the old
dressing up box.”

And
there was. After we’d hunted through some family photographs and
got thoroughly distracted by my old school reports,
we came across some dresses lying in the bottom of an ancient and
mildewed trunk.

“Mum,
this is gorgeous!” I exclaimed as I reached in and drew out a
dress. Made from shot silk it was neither green nor gold but was a
colour which magically moved between. Tight waisted and sleeveless it
could, with a bit of imagination, be transformed into something
vaguely nineteenth century. This however wasn’t good enough for
Mum.

“Which
decade I wonder?” She mused and fingered the silk lovingly. She
sighed, “The 1830s had such pretty designs but that’s too early
for you. Wouldn’t count as really Victorian.”

I
looked at her curiously. “Was
this yours? Did you wear it?” I coughed a little and rubbed a
cobweb away from my face.

She smiled and sighed
again. “I wore it to the first proper dance your Dad took me to. It
was a firm’s do. Very posh, all the ladies had to wear long. I was,
let’s see.” She paused and tapped her cheek thoughtfully. “Twenty
two? No, twenty three I think I was.” She held the dress against
her and, in the cramped confines of the attic, did a little twirl.
“Oh, how your Dad and I used to love to dance.” She noticed my
look of disbelief. “Yes, Nicola, your old Dad. I don’t suppose
you can imagine him on the dance floor can you?” She shook her head
and laughed, the first I’d heard from her in a long, long time. She
felt the front of the dress. “Well, it’s got a boned bodice so
you wouldn’t have to wear a corset.”

“I
should think not,” I interrupted indignantly. But I smiled back at
her. I was entranced at the idea of my parents dancing the night
away.

Mum’s
mind was bent on more practical matters, however. She gave me an
old-fashioned
look. “Does wonders for the figure, Nicola.” She looked me up and
down and raised her eyebrows, “You’re bigger than I was of course
and taller. But I might have some nice velvet somewhere that I could
tag onto the bottom, to make a frill. That might do. Shall we take it
into the bedroom and try it on you?”

In the
cold light of my parents’ bedroom reality replaced romance with a
vengeance. The dress was only calf length on me,
it would need a long frill added to it. Moreover, the bodice was
extremely tight.

“Breathe
in child,” scolded Mum, as she viciously tugged the back together
in an attempt to do up the hooks and eyes.

“I
am,” I protested feebly, as she finally got the dress fastened and
turned me to the mirror.

Mum
and I began to giggle like a pair of overgrown schoolgirls. I made a
comical sight. The dress was extremely low cut and revealed my aged
M&S T-shirt bra in all its glory. As accessories, my neon stripy
socks didn’t help the image much either. However, the colour suited
me and the bodice, although painfully tight, did push my bust upwards
into an interesting shape. It also managed to accentuate my hips to
give me a feminine curvy shape. I rather liked it. Apart from the
fact I couldn’t breathe.

“Don’t
you think it’s a bit low cut?” I gasped as I bent over to reveal
an impressive décolletage.

“Nonsense,”
said the woman who had seemingly replaced my mother. “You want to
show off your assets don’t you? Then she saw my look of doubt and
added, “I can always put some flowers – roses, I think, around
the neck-line. I can make some out of the same material that I put on
the hem.” Then she tutted, “You’ll need some new underwear,
young lady. That bra’s a disgrace!”

She
stood behind me smiling wistfully at my reflection in the full-length
mirror and I glimpsed sudden tears starting in her eyes. “You’ll
be the belle of the ball my Nicola, never you fear!” She gave my
shoulders a gentle shake. “And it’ll give me a little project to
work on over the next few weeks. Now when did you say you needed it
by?”

I told her and then said
desperately, as another thought suddenly occurred to me, “Oh and
Mum, do you think Dad could give me dancing lessons?”

The
term was hurling itself frantically to its conclusion. Green, red and
white tissue paper was being used by the bucket load to make cards
and decorations;
the children in Reception were making some peculiar looking
unidentifiable objects, sure to be treasured by doting parents.
Concerns over the budget had, after the third re-order, led me to
ration out the supplies. Something which had caused me to be jokingly
christened ‘Scrooge’ for a few days. I didn’t mind. I took the
name calling as the sign of affection that it was.

I’d
tried very hard to make sure I did
a good job of being Rupert’s mentor and liaised regularly with him.
As we taught in the same year group, we had to work closely together
in any case. At first he’d made the mistake of being too familiar
with the pupils wanting, as any teacher does, to be liked and not
realising that respect and like do not necessarily need to go hand in
hand. But he’d gradually won them round and was making real
progress. I was delighted and was enjoying the role of mentor. It was
like having another pupil but one who was always keen to improve.

Rupert
hung upon my every word, which I secretly found flattering. It was
certainly a novelty in comparison to the exhausting arguments I
always had with Jack. But I half suspected Rupert might have a bit of
a crush on me and didn’t know quite what to do about it.

Jack
always seemed very short with me when I emerged from the
mentoring meetings, often to go straight into a senior management
meeting. We seemed to be having a lot of those lately and I wondered
if Jack was expecting the dreaded telephone call. The one which
signalled an Ofsted inspection. At this stage of the term, it was all
we needed.

The
school was gradually changing. The children, due to constant nagging
from us, seemed to come into school more smartly dressed and took
much more pride in their achievements. Jack was harsh and unyielding
about punishment but he was equally determined to reward those
children who did well. They respected and feared their new headmaster
in equal measure. The staff too were gradually coming around to some
of his ideas but, for some reason, he seemed unwilling to acknowledge
their successes. This was something I tried hard to do. It was
gaining me no little measure of respect. The ironing service and
sandwich supplies had been unanimously welcomed and were proving
popular and successful. I was pleased. I’d eventually persuaded
Jack that weekly staff meetings weren’t necessary. As long as he or
I did a five-minute
bulletin in the staff room at the beginning of each day, we found we
could get away with fortnightly more formal meetings. This freed the
teachers up to meet and share planning. This was going down well too.
Rupert was a very vocal supporter of all my suggestions and Janice,
more surprisingly, had become a firm ally as well. I really felt I
was getting somewhere and I was enjoying every minute of it.

I’d found time to pop
round to see Tony and had been given a cool reception. He and his
wife had grudgingly made me a cup of tea. I’d handed over the
Christmas cards written by the staff and children and, after ten more
minutes of desperate small talk, had fled. A thought did occur to me
though, that as we always had trouble finding supply teachers,
whether Tony would welcome some work. I decided to save suggesting it
to Jack until after Christmas however, when things were a little less
hectic. Something told me I would be in for another battle.

The
Christmas gala was scheduled for the evening of the last day of term.
As usual, after the long Autumn
slog, everyone was on their knees with exhaustion. Over the last few
days though, we had all been re-energised, at least to some extent,
by the excitement felt by the children. Christmas in a primary school
is always a magical time and the children had excelled themselves in
their various Christmas celebrations.

As I
watched the youngest children take part in the Nativity play I felt
the inevitable lump rise in my throat. The very
youngest children were dressed in black from top to toe, with tiny
silver scraps of tinsel sewn onto their costumes. These, complete
with tinsel tiaras, had transformed even the most snotty nosed infant
into twinkling stars as they danced stumblingly across the stage. It
was very moving and made me remember what had drawn me to teaching in
the first place. It was a privilege at a time like this. And, when
the whole of school joined together to sing ‘Silent Night’, there
wasn’t a dry eye in the house.

As I
left the hall, in the wake of children, teachers and parents the
words still echoed in my head. Then I came back down to earth and
chuckled as I heard Thomas Butcher
in Year One ask in a puzzled voice, “I know who the Baby Jesus is
and Mary and Joseph. But Mummy, who’s Round John?”

Then
it
was the turn of the adults. There had been a certain amount of
competition about costumes for the Victorian fancy dress gala and
teachers were being unusually secretive about what they were wearing.
Dad was dropping off my dress on the night of the party and I was
going to get changed in school.

When the last day of term
finally came, Ann and I met in my classroom. Hurriedly we closed the
blinds and began to get ready. It soon became abundantly clear that
she had taken the task of finding a Victorian style dress far more
seriously than I. I did up the back of her shell pink dress and then
stood back to admire the effect.

“Well,
what do you think?” she asked me excitedly.

She
looked lovely. Ann was tall and graceful and her choice of costume
suited her. Like my dress, hers was tight waisted and full skirted
but there the resemblance ended. Ann’s shoulders were bare but her
arms were encased in tightly fitting silk. Pink roses ran in a line
down each sleeve and were echoed in the decoration around the
swooping neckline. Her bodice fitted her slim figure perfectly and
the skirt ballooned out into a bell shape. It even appeared to have
what looked like a small bustle.

On me,
the effect would have been matronly but it gave Ann voluptuous
curves. Several more rows of silk flowers edged the hem and she had
even bought fresh roses to wear in her hair.

“You
look beautiful Ann, you really do.” It was the truth and I wasn’t
one to lie, even if I was harbouring the idea that the motive for all
her finery was a certain tall, dark headmaster. I swallowed my sudden
pang of jealousy. After all, she had worked really hard on organising
this evening. She deserved the praise.

Ann swished her skirt
from side to side in satisfaction and giggled. “I’m so pleased it
works. It’s been at the dressmaker’s for ages. I wanted it to fit
like a glove. It was my sister’s wedding dress and she was a bit
reluctant to lend it to me.” She laughed again, although his time
it sounded more like a snigger. “Perhaps a certain person will get
ideas if I drop hints that this is a wedding dress! Oh, I know I
haven’t known him for very long but what do you think Nicky? Do you
think I’m in with a chance?” She turned to me, eyes aglow.
Without waiting for an answer she went on, “Janice thinks there’s
someone else he’s interested in. Still, all’s fair in love and
war isn’t it!”

The pang of jealousy
burned more fiercely. I gulped and thought frantically of what I
could say. As I still didn’t answer, Ann looked at her watch and
frowned.

“Ooh,
look at the time, come on Nicky, hurry up. Is this your dress? Oh
it’s sweet and such a pretty colour!” She struggled to pull the
back of my dress together and began to fasten the hooks and eyes.
“God, it’s going to be a bit tight. Have you put on some weight?”

We
entered the hall together but Ann soon spotted someone she wanted to
talk to and disappeared. The hall was crowded and hot; it looked as
if most people were there already. It was all looking really
festive. On the previous evening a team of us had worked long into
the night in order to decorate it. In an effort to disguise the
wall-bars we had wound red, green and white paper chains around them.
I’d added lengths of ivy at the last moment and thankfully it still
looked fresh. Along one side of the hall Mona had set up the trestle
tables and had covered them with pristine white cloth. They were
groaning with food and drink and were prettily edged with holly and
mistletoe.