Claudia Cardinale

It was a girl in the Third Form, Carolann Clare Who, bored with the lesson, the rivers of England – Brathay, Coquet, Crake, Dee, Don, Goyt Rothay, Tyne, Swale, Tees, Wear, Wharfe Had passed, a note, which has never been found To the classmate in front, Emily Jane, a girl Who adored the teacher, Miss V. Dunn MA Steadily squeaking her chalk on the board – Allen, Clough, Duddon, Feugh, Greta, Hindburn Irwell, Kent, Leven, Lowther, Lune, Sprint But who furtively opened the folded note Torn from the back of the King James Bible, read What was scribbled there and laughed out loud It was a miserable, lowering winter’s day. The girls Had been kept indoors at break – Wet Play In the Hall – the windows tall and thin Sad with rain like a song list of watery names – Rawthey, Roeburn, Skirfare, Troutbeck, Wash Likewise, the sound of the laugh of Emily Jane Was a liquid one, a gurgle, a ripple, a dribble A babble, a gargle, a plash, a splash of a laugh Like the sudden jackpot leap of a silver fish In the purse of a pool. No fool, Emily Jane Clamped her turquoise hand – her fountain pen leaked – To her mouth; but the laugh was out, was at large Was heard by the pupil twinned to her double desk – Rosemary Beth – the brace on whose jiggly teeth Couldn’t restrain the gulping giggle she gave Which caused Miss Dunn to spin round. Perhaps She said, We can all share the joke? But Emily Jane Had scrunched and dropped the note with the joke To the floor and kicked it across to Jennifer Kay Who snorted and toed it across to Marjorie May Who spluttered and heeled it backwards To Jessica Kate. Girls! By now, every girl in the form Had started to snigger or snicker or titter or chuckle Or chortle till the classroom came to the boil With a brothy mirth. Girls! Miss Dunn’s shrill voice Scraped Top G and only made matters worse Five minutes passed in a cauldron of noise No one could seem to stop. Each tried holding Her breath or thinking of death or pinching Her thigh, only to catch the eye of a pal A crimson, shaking, silent girl, and explode Through the noise in a cackling sneeze. Thank you! Please! Screeched Miss Dunn, clapping her hands As though she applauded the choir they’d become A percussion of trills and whoops filling the room Like birds in a cage. But then came a triple rap At the door and in stalked Miss Fife, Head of Maths Whose cold equations of eyes scanned the desks For a suitable scapegoat. Stand up, Geraldine Ruth Geraldine Ruth got to her feet, a pale girl, a girl Who looked, in the stale classroom light, like a sketch For a girl, a first draft to be crumpled and crunched And tossed away like a note. She cleared her throat Raising her eyes, water and sky, to look at Miss Fife The girls who were there that day never forgot How invisible crayons seemed to colour in Geraldine Ruth, white face to puce, mousey hair Suddenly gifted with health and youth, and how – As Miss Fife demanded what was the meaning of this – Her lips split from the closed bud of a kiss To the daisy chain of a grin and how then she yodelled A laugh with the full, open, blooming rose of her throat A flower of merriment. What’s the big joke? Thundered Miss Fife as Miss Dunn began again To clap, as gargling Geraldine Ruth collapsed In a heap on her desk, as the rest of the class Hollered and hooted and howled. Miss Fife strode On sharp heels to the blackboard, snatched up A finger of chalk and jabbed and slashed out A word. SILENCE. But the class next door Fourth Years learning the Beaufort scale with Miss Batt Could hear the commotion. Miss Batt droned on – Nought, calm; one, light air; two, light breeze; three Gentle . . . four, moderate . . . five, fresh . . . six, strong breeze; Seven, moderate gale . . . Stephanie Fay started to laugh What’s so amusing, Stephanie Fay? barked Miss Batt What’s so amusing? echoed unwitting Miss Dunn On the other side of the wall. Precisely what’s So amusing? chorused Miss Fife. The Fourth Years Shrieked with amazed delight and one wag Angela Joy, popped her head in the jaws of her desk And bellowed What’s so amusing? What’s so Amusing? into its musty yawn. The Third Form Guffawed afresh at the sound of the Fourth And the noise of the two combined was heard By the First Form, trying to get Shakespeare by heart To the beat of the ruler of Mrs Mackay. Don’t look At your books, look at me. After three. Friends Romans, Countrymen . . . What’s so amusing? rapped out Mrs Mackay as the First Years chirruped And trilled like baby birds in a nest at a worm; But she heard for herself, appalled, the chaos Coming in waves through the wall and clipped To the door. Uproar. And her Head of Lower School! It was then that Mrs Mackay made mistake number one Leaving her form on its own while she went to see To the forms of Miss Batt and Miss Dunn. The moment She’d gone, the room blossomed with paper planes Ink bombs, whistles, snatches of song, and the class clown – Caroline Joan – stood on her desk and took up The speech where Mrs Mackay had left off – Lend Me your ears . . . just what the Second Form did In the opposite room, reciting the Poets Laureate For Miss Nadimbaba – John Dryden, Thomas Shadwell Nahum Tate, Nicholas Rowe, Laurence Eusden, Colley Cibber William Whitehead . . . but scattering titters and giggles Like noisy confetti on reaching Henry Pye as Carline Joan Belted out Antony’s speech in an Elvis style – For Brutus, uh huh huh, is an honourable man Miss Nadimbaba, no fan of rock ‘n’ roll, could scarcely Believe her ears, deducing at once that Mrs Mackay Was not with her class. She popped an anxious head Outside her door. Anarchy roared in her face Like a tropical wind. The corridor clock was at four The last bell rang. Although they would later regret it The teachers, taking their cue from wits-end Mrs Mackay Allowed the chuckling, bright-eyed, mirthful girls To go home, reprimand-free, each woman privately glad That the dark afternoon was over and done The chalky words rubbed away to dance as dust On the air, the dates, the battles, the kings and queens The rivers and tributaries, poets, painters, playwrights Politicos, popes . . . but they all agreed to make it quite clear In tomorrow’s Assembly that foolish behaviour – Even if only the once – wasn’t admired or desired At Stafford Girls’ High. Above the school, the moon Was pinned like a monitor’s badge to the sky Miss Dunn was the first to depart, wheeling Her bicycle through the gates, noticing how The sky had cleared, a tidy diagram of the Plough Directly above. She liked it this cold, her breath Chiffoning out behind as she freewheeled home Down the hill, her mind emptying itself of geography Of mountains and seas and deserts and forests And capital cities. Her small terraced house looked She thought, like a sleeping face. She roused it Each evening, kisses of light on its cheeks From her lamps, the small talk of cutlery, pots And pans as she cooked, sweet silver steam caressing The shy rooms of her home. Miss Dunn live alone So did Miss Batt, in a flat on the edge of the park Near the school; though this evening Miss Fife Was coming for supper. The two were good friends And Miss Fife liked to play on Miss Batt’s small piano After the meal and the slowly shared carafe of wine Music and Maths! Johann Sebastian Bach! Miss Batt An all-rounder, took out her marking – essays on Henry VIII And his wives from the Fifth – while Miss Fife gave herself up To Minuet in G. In between Catherine Howard And Catherine Parr, Miss Batt glanced across at Fifi’s Straight back as she played, each teacher conscious Of each woman’s silently virtuous love. Nights like this Twice a week, after school, for them both, seemed enough Mrs Mackay often gave Miss Nadimbaba a lift As they both, by coincidence, lived on Mulberry Drive – Mrs Mackay with her husband of twenty-five grinding Childless years; Miss Nadimbaba sharing a house With her elderly aunt. Neither had ever invited The other one in, although each would politely enquire After her colleague’s invisible half. Mrs Mackay Watched Miss Nadimbaba open her purple door and saw A cat rubbing itself on her calf. She pulled away From the kerb, worrying whether Mr Mackay would insist On fish for his meal. Then he would do his crossword: Mr Mackay calling out clues – Kind of court for a bounder (8) – While she passed him Roget, Brewer, Pears, the OED The women teachers of England slept in their beds Their shrewd or wise or sensible heads safe vessels For Othello’s jealousy, the Wife of Bath’s warm laugh The phases of the moon, the country code; For Roman numerals, Greek alphabets, French verbs; For foreign currencies and Latin roots, for logarithms, tables Quotes; the meanings of current calamo and fiat lux and stet Miss Dunn dreamed of a freezing white terrain Where slowly moving elephants were made of ice Miss Nadimbaba dreamed she knelt to kiss Miss Barrett On her couch and she, Miss Nadimbaba, was Browning Saying Beloved, be my wife . . . and then a dog began to bark And she woke up. Miss Batt dreamed of Miss Fife * * * Morning assembly – the word like Quink outside The teachers perched in a solemn row on the stage The Fifth and Sixth Forms clever and tall, Miss Fife At the school piano, the Head herself, Doctor Bream At the stand – was a serious affair. Jerusalem hung In the air till the last of Miss Fife’s big chords Wobbled away. Yesterday, intoned Doctor Bream The Lower school behaved in a foolish way, sniggering For the most of the late afternoon. She glared at the girls Through her pince-nez and paused for dramatic effect But the First and Second and Third and Fourth Forms Started to laugh, each girl trying to swallow it down Till the sound was like distant thunder, the opening chord Of a storm. Miss Dunn and Miss Batt, Miss Nadimbaba And Mrs Mackay leapt to their feet as one, grim-faced The Fifth Form hooted and howled. Miss Fife, oddly disturbed Crashed down fistfuls of furious notes on the yellowing keys The Sixth Forms, upper and lower, shrieked. Señora Devizes Sartorial, strict, slim, server teacher of Spanish Stalked from the stage and stilettoed sharply down To the back of the Hall to chastise the Fifth and Sixth ¡Callaos! ¡Callaos! ¡Callaos! ¡Quédense! The whole school Guffawed; their pink young lungs flowering more Than they had for the hymn. ¡El clamor! The Hall was a zoo Snow began falling outside as though the clouds Were being slowly torn up like a rule book. A good laugh As the poet Ursula Fleur, who attended the school Was to famously write, is feasting on air. The air that day Was chomped, chewed, bitten in two, pulled apart Like a wishbone, licked like a lollipop, sluiced and sucked Some of the girls were almost sick. Girls gulped or sipped Or slurped as they savoured the joke. What joke? Nobody knew. A silly joy sparkled and fizzed. Tabitha Rose Flower monitor for the day, wet herself, wailed, wept, ran From the Hall, a small human shower of rain. The bell For the start of lessons rang. Somehow the school Filed out in a raggedly line. The Head Girl, Josephine June Scarlet-faced from killing herself, was in for a terrible time With the Head. Snow iced the school like a giant cake No one on record recalls the words that were said But Josephine June was stripped of the Head Girl’s badge And sash and sent to the Sixth Form Common Room To demand of the prefects how they could hope to grow to be The finest of England’s daughters and mothers and wives After this morning’s Assembly’s abysmal affair? But the crowd of girls gave a massive cheer, stamping The floor with their feet in a rebel beat and Diana Kim Captain of Sports, jumped on a chair and declared That if J.J. was no longer Head Girl then no one Would take her place. All for one! Someone yelled. And one For all! Diana Kim opened the window and jumped down Into the snow. With a shriek, Emmeline Bell jumped after her Followed by cackling Anthea Meg, Melanie Hope, Andrea Lyn J.J. herself . . . It was Gillian Tess in the Fifth, being lectured By tight-lipped Señora Devizes on how to behave, who glanced From the first-floor window and noticed the Sixth Form Bouncing around in the snow like girls on the moon A snowball, the size of a netball, was creaking, rolling Growing under their hands. Look! Girls at their windows gaped It grew from a ball to the size of a classroom globe. It grew From a globe to the size of a huge balloon. Miss Dunn Drumming the world’s highest mountains into the heads Of the First Years – Everest, K2, Kangchenjunga, Lhoste, Makalu 1 Flung open her window and breathed in the passionate cold Of the snow. A wild thought seeded itself in her head In later years, the size of the snowball rolled by the Sixth Grew like a legend. Some claimed that the Head, as it groaned Past her study, thought that there might have been an eclipse Ursula Fleur, in her prose poem Snow, wrote that it took The rest of the Michaelmas Term to melt. Miss Batt Vacantly staring down as her class wrote out a list Of the monarchs of England – Egbert, Ethelwulf, Ethelbald Ethelbert, Ethelred, Alfred, Edward, Athelstan, Edmund Eadred, Eadwing, Edgar . . . noticed the snowball, huge and alone On the hockey pitch, startlingly white in the pencil grey Of the light, and thought of desire, of piano scales slowing Slowing, breasts. She moaned aloud, forgetful of where She was. Francesca Eve echoed the moan. The class roared But that night Miss Batt, while she cooked for Miss Fife Who was opening the wine with a corkscrew From the last year’s school trip to Sienna and Florence Felt herself naked, electric under her tartan skirt, twin set And pearls; and later, Miss Fife at the piano, stroking The first notes of Beethoven’s ‘Moonlight’ Sonata, Miss Batt Came behind her, placing her inked and trembling hands On her shoulders. A broken A minor chord stumbled And died. Miss Fife said that Ludwig could only Have written this piece when he was in love. Miss Batt Pulled Miss Fife by the hair, turning her face around, hearing Her gasp, bending down, kissing her, kissing her, kissing her Essays on Cardinal Wolsey lay unmarked on the floor Across the hushed white park, down the slush of the hill Miss Dunn crouched on the floor of her sitting room Over a map of Tibet. The whisky glass in her nervous hand Clunked on her teeth, Talisker sheathing her tongue In a heroine’s warmth. She moved her finger slowly Over the map, the roof of the world. Her fingers walked to Nepal Changing the mountain Chomulungma to Sagarmatha She sipped at her malt and thought about Mallory, lost On Everest’s slopes with his English Air, of how he’d wanted To reach the summit because it was there. She wondered Whether he had. Nobody knew. She was herself walking The upper slopes with the Captain of Sports towards The foetal shape of a sleeping man . . . She turned to the girl * * * That Monday morning Doctor Bream, at her desk Didn’t yet know that the laughter of Stafford Girls’ High Would not go away. But when she stood on the stage Garbed in her Cambridge cap and gown, and told the school To quietly stand and contemplate a fresh and serious start To the week, and closed her eyes – the hush like an air balloon Tethered with ropes – a low and vulgar giggle yanked At the silence. Doctor Bream kept her eyes clenched, hoping That if she ignored it all would be well. Clumps of laughter Sprouted among the row upon row of girls. Doctor Bream Determined and blind, started the morning’s hymn. I vow To thee my country . . . A flushed Miss Fife started to play All earthly things above . . . The rest of the staff joined in – Entire and whole and perfect, the service of my love The love that asks no questions, the love that stands the test But the girls were hysterical, watching the Head Queen Canute, singing against the tide of their mirth Their shoals, their glittering laughter. She opened her eyes – Clarice Maud Bream, MBE, DLitt – and saw, in the giggling sea One face which seemed to her to be worse, cheekier Redder and louder, than all of the rest. Nigella Dawn Was fished by the Head from her seat and made to stand On a chair on the stage. Laughter drained from the Hall. This girl Boomed the Head, will stand on this chair for as long as it takes For the school to come to its senses. SILENCE! The whole school Stood like a crowd waiting for news. The bell rang. Nobody Moved. Nobody made a sound. Minutes slinked away As Nigella Dawn swayed on her creaky chair. The First Years Stared in shame at their shoes. The Head’s tight smile Was a tick. That, she thought, in a phrase of her mother’s Has put the tin lid on that. A thin high whine, a kitten Wind on a wire, came from behind. The school Seemed to hold its breath. Nigella Dawn shook on her chair The sound came again, louder. Doctor Bream looked to the staff Miss Batt had her head in her lap and was keening and rocking Backwards and forwards. The noise put the Head in mind Of a radio dial – Luxembourg, Light, Hilversum, Welsh – As though the woman were trying to tune in to herself. Miss Batt Flung her head back and laughed, laughed like a bride * * * Mr and Mrs Mackay silently ate. She eyed him Boning his fish, slicking it down to the backbone Sliding the skeleton out, fastidious, deft. She spied him Eat from the right of his plate to the left, ordered, precise She clenched herself for his voice. A very nice dish From the bottomless deep. Bad words ran in her head like mice She wanted to write them down like crossword lights 14 Across: F . . . 17 Down: F . . . . . . 2 Down: F Mr Mackay reached for the OED. She bit her lip. A word For one who is given to walking by night, not necessarily In sleep. She felt her heart flare in its dark cave, hungry, blind Open in its small beak. Beginning with N. Mrs Mackay Moved to the window and stared at the ravenous night. Later Awake in the beached boat of the marital bed, Mrs Mackay Slid from between the sheets. Her spouse whistled and whined She dressed in sweater and slacks, in boots, in her old tweed coat And slipped from the house with a tut of the front door snib Her breath swaggered away like a genie popped from a flask She looked for the moon, found it, arched high over the house A raised eyebrow of light, and started to walk. The streets Were empty, darkly sparkling under her feet, ribbons that tied The sleeping town like a gift. A black cat glared from a wall Mrs Mackay walked and walked, letting the night Sigh underneath her clothes, perfume her skin; letting it in The scented night – stone, starlight, tree-sleep, rat, owl A calm rhythm measured itself in her head. Noctambulist She walked for hours, till dawn’s soft tip rubbed, smudged Erased the dark. Back home, she stripped and washed And dressed for school, moving about in the kitchen Till Mr Mackay appeared, requesting a four-minute egg From a satisfied hen. She watched him slice off the top With the side of his spoon, dip in his toast, savour the soft gold Of the yolk with his neat tongue. She thought of the girls How they’d laughed now for weeks. Panic nipped and salted Her eyes. And later that day, walking among the giggling desks Of the Third, she read Cleopatra’s lament in a shaking voice As tears shone on her cheeks: Hast thou no care for me? Shall I abide in this dull word, which in thy absence is No better than sty? O! see my women, the crown O’ the earth doth melt. My lord! O! withered is the garland Of the war, the soldier’s pole is fall’n; young boys and girls Are level now with men; the odds is gone, and there is nothing Left remarkable beneath the visiting moon. Carolann Clare, trapped In a breathless crippling laugh, seriously thought she would die Mrs Mackay lay down her book and asked the girls to start From the top and carry on reading the play round the class She closed her eyes and seemed to drift off at her desk The voices of girls shared Shakespeare, line by line, the clock Over the blackboard crumbling its minutes into the dusty air From the other side of the wall, light breezes of laughter came And went. Further away, from the music, room, the sound Of the orchestra hooted and sneered its way through Grieg Miss Batt, in the staffroom, marking The War of Jenkins’ Ear Over and over again, put down her pen. Music reminded her Of Miss Fife. She lay her head on the table, dizzy with lust, longed For the four o’clock bell, for home, for pasta and vino rosso For Fifi’s body on hers in the single bed, for kisses that tasted Of jotters, of wine. She picked up an essay and read: England went to war with Spain because a seaman, Robert Jenkins, claimed that the Spanish thought him a smuggler And cut off his ear. He showed the ear in the Commons And public opinion forced the Government to declare war On October 23, 1739 . . . Miss Batt cursed under her breath Slashing a red tick with her pen. The music had stopped. Hilarity Squealed and screeched in its place down the corridor Miss Nadimbaba was teaching the poems of Yeats To the Fifth when the girls in the orchestra laughed. She held In her hands the poem which made her a scribbler of verse At twelve or thirteen. ‘The Song’ – she was sick of the laughter At Stafford Girls’ High – ‘of Wandering Aengus.’ She stared At the girls in her class who were starting to shake. An epidemic That’s what it was. It had gone on all term. It was now the air That they breathed, teachers and girls: a giggling, sniggering Gurgling, snickering atmosphere, a laughing gas that seeped Under doors, up corridors, into the gym, the chemistry lab The swimming pool, into Latin and Spanish and French and Greek Into Needlework, History, Art, R.K., P.E., into cross-country runs Into the silver apples of the moon, the golden apples of the sun Miss Dunn stood with her bike outside school after four Scanning the silly, cackling girls for a face – Diana Kim’s The Captain of Sports was tall, red-haired. Her green eyes Stared at Miss Dunn and Miss Dunn knew. This was a girl Who would scale a vertical wall of ice with her fingertips Who would pitch a tent on the lip of a precipice, who would know When the light was good, when the wind was bad, when snow Was powdery or hard. The girl had the stuff of heroines. Diana Kim Walked with the teacher, pushing her bicycle for her, hearing her Outline the journey, the great adventure, the climb to the Mother Of Earth. Something inside her opened and bloomed Miss Dunn was her destiny, fame, a strong hand pulling her Higher and higher into the far Tibetan clouds, into the sun * * * Doctor Bream was well aware that something had to be done Laughter, it seemed, was on the curriculum. The girls Found everything funny, strange; howled or screamed At the slightest thing. The Headmistress prowled the school Listening at classroom doors. The new teacher, Mrs Munro Was reading The Flaying of Marsyas to the Third: Help! Why are you stripping me from myself? The girls were in fits Mrs Munro’s tight voice struggled on: It was possible to count His throbbing organs and the chambers of his lungs. Shrieks And squeals stabbed the air. Why? At what? Doctor Bream Snooped on. Miss Batt was teaching the First Form the names Of the nine major planets: Mercury, Venus, Earth, Mars Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus . . . Pandemonium hooted and whooped The grim Head passed down the corridor, hearing the Fifth Form Gargling its way through the Diet of Worms. She came To the Honours Board, the names of the old girls written in gold – Head Girls who had passed into legend, Captains of Sport Who had played the game, prize-winning girls, girls who’d gone on To achieve great things. Members of Parliament! Blasts of laughter Belched from the playing fields. Doctor Bream walked to her room And stood by her desk. Her certificates preened behind glass In the wintery light. Silver medals and trophies and cups gleamed In the cabinet. She went to the wall – the school photograph Glinted and glowed, each face like a fingertip; the pupils Straight-backed, straight-faced; the staff upright, straight-laced A warm giggle burbled outside. She flung open the door The empty corridor winked. She could hear A distant piano practising Für Elise . . . Señora Devizes Counting in Spanish in one of the rooms – uno, dos, tres Cuatro, cinco, seis, siete, ocho, nueve, diez, once, doce Trece, catorce, quince, diez y seis, diez y siete, diez y ocho A shrill whistle blowing outside . . . But then a burst of hysteria Came from the classroom above, rolled down the stairs Exploded again the classroom below. Mrs Mackay Frantic, hoarse, could be heard pitching Portia’s speech Over the hoots of the Fourth: The quality of MERCY Is not STRAINED. It droppeth as the gentle rain from HEAVEN Upon the place BENEATH . . . Cackles, like gunfire, crackled And spat through the school. A cheer boomed from the Gym It went on thus – through every hymn or poem, catechism Logarithm, sum, exam; in every classroom, drama room To music room; on school trips to a factory or farm; from First to Sixth Form, dunce to academic crème de la crème Day in, day out; till, towards the end of the Hilary Term Doctor Bream called yet another meeting in the Staffroom Determined now to solve the problem of the laughter Of the girls once and for all. The staff filed in at 4.15 – Miss Batt, Miss Fife, Miss Dunn, Mrs Munro, the sporty Mrs Lee, Mrs Mackay, Miss Nadimbaba, the Heads of French And Science – Miss Feaver, Mirs Kaye – Señora Devizes The tuneful Miss Aherne, the part-time drama teacher Mrs Prendergast. The Head stood up and clapped her hands Miss Fife poured Earl Grey tea. Miss Dunn stood by the window Staring out. Miss Batt burned at Miss Fife. Mrs Mackay Sat down and closed her eyes. Miss Nadimbaba churned The closing couplet of a poem in her head. Miss Feaver Crossed her legs and smiled at Mrs Lee, who twirled A squash racquet between her rosy knees. I think we all agree Said Doctor Bream, that things are past the pale. The girls Are learning nothing. Discipline’s completely gone To pot. I’d like to hear from each of you in turn. Mrs Mackay? Mrs Mackay opened her eyes and sighed. And shook her head And then she started singing: It was a lover and his lass With a hey, and a ho, and a hey nonimo, that o’er The green cornfield did pass, in the spring time The only pretty ring time, when birds do sing, hey ding A ding, ding; sweet lovers love the spring. A silence fell Miss Batt looked at Miss Fife and cleared her throat. Miss Fife And I are leaving at the end of term. Miss Dunn at the window Turned. I’m leaving then myself. To have a crack at Everest The Head sank to a chair. Miss Nadimbaba stood. Then one by one The staff resigned – to publish poetry, to live in Spain, to form A tennis club, to run a restaurant in Nice, to tread the boards To sing in smoky clubs, to translate Ovid into current speech To study homeopathy. Doctor Bream was white with shock And what, she forced herself at last to say, about the girls? Miss Batt, slowly undressing Fifi in the stockroom in her head Winked at Miss Fife. She giggled girlishly. Miss Feaver laughed * * * Small hours. The moon tracked Mrs Mackay as she reached the edge Of the sleeping town, houses dwindling to fields, the road Twisting up and away into the distant hills. She caught her mid Making anagrams – grow heed, stab, rats – and forced herself To chant aloud as she walked. Hedgerow. Bats. Star. Her head Cleared. The town was below her now, dark and hunched A giant husband bunched in his sleep. Mrs Mackay climbed on Higher and higher, keeping close to the ditch, till the road snaked Into a long S then levelled out into open countryside. Shore Love, steer, low, master, night loom, riven use, no. Horse. Vole Trees. Owl. Stream. Moonlight. Universe. On. Wed, loop, wand Drib, tiles, pay thaw, god. Dew. Pool. Dawn. Bird. Stile. Pathway Dog. She arrived at the fringe of a village as morning broke Miss Batt held Miss Fife in her arms at dawn, the small room Chaste with new light. Miss fife began to talk in her sleep – The square of the hypotenuse is equal to the sum Of the squares of the other two sides. Miss Batt slid down Nuzzled her breastbone, her stomach, kissed down, kissed down Down to the triangle. The tutting bedside clock Counted to five. They woke again at seven, stupid with love Everything they knew – the brightest stars, Sirius, Canopus Alpha Centauri, Vega; the Roman Emperors, Claudius Nero, Galba, Otho, Vitellius; musical terms, allegro, calando Crescendo, glissando; mathematics, the value of pi Prime numbers, Cantor’s infinities – only a jumble of words A jumble of words. A long deep zero groaned from Miss Fife Miss Dunn took out her list and checked it again Her class was sniggering its way through a test on Britain’s largest lakes She mouthed her list like a prayer: socks, mittens, shirt, leggings Hat, face mask, goggles, harness, karabiners, ice screws, pitons Helmet, descender, ascender, loops, slings, ice axe, gaiters Crampons, boots, jacket, hood, trousers, water bottle, urine Bottle, waste bags, sleeping bag, kit bag, head torch, batteries Tent, medical kit, maps, stove, butane, radio, fixing line, rope Cord, stoppers, wands, stakes and chocks and all of it twice A sprinkle of giggles made her look up. Pass your test to the girl On your left to be marked. The answers are: Lough Neagh Lower Lough Erne, Loch Lomond, Loch Ness, Loch Awe, Upper Lough Erne . . . Diana Kim climbed and climbed in her head Doctor Bream read through the letter to parents then signed Her name at the end. The school was to close at the end of term Until further notice. A dozen resignation notes from the staff lay On her desk. The Head put her head in her hands and wept A local journalist lurked at the gates. Señora Devizes And Miss Nadimbaba entered the room to say that the girls Were filing into the Hall for the Special Assembly. There was still No sign of Mrs Mackay. She looked at the shattered Head And Kipling sprang to Miss Nadimbaba’s lips: If you can force Your heart and nerve and sinew to server your turn long after they Are gone . . . Señora Devizes joined in: Persiste aun no tengas Fuerza, y sólo te quede la voluntad que les dice: ¡Persiste! The Head got to her feet and straightened her back And so, Doctor Bream summed up, you girls have laughed this once Great school into the ground. Señora Devizes plans to return To Spain. Cries of ¡Olé! Miss Batt and Miss Fife have resigned Wolf whistles. Mrs Prendergast is joining the Theatre Royale A round of applause crashed on the boards like surf. The Head stared At the laughing girls then turned and marched from the stage Clipped up the polished corridor, banged through the double doors Crunched down the gravel drive to the Staff Car Park and into her car Elvis, shrieked Caroline Joan from the Hall, has left the building A cheer like an avalanche bounced off the roof. The Captain of Sports Slipped from her seat and followed Miss Dunn. The girls burst Into song as their mute teachers walked from the stage. Till we Have built Jerusalem in England’s green and pleasant land * * * The empty school creaked and sighed, its desks the small coffins Of lessons, its blackboards the tombstones of learning. The books In the Library stiffened and yellowed and curled. The portraits Of gone Headmistresses stared into space. The school groaned The tiles on its roof falling off in its sleep, its windows as white As chalk. The grass on the playing fields grew like grass On a grave. Doctor Bream stared from her hospital window Over the fields. She could see the school bell in its tower glint In the evening sun like a tear in an eye. She turned away. Postcards And get-well messages from the staff were pinned to the wall She took down a picture of Everest from Miss Dunn: We leave Camp II tomorrow if the weather holds to climb the Corridor To 21,000 feet. Both coping well with altitude. The Sherpas Mrs Mackay walked through Glen Strathfarrar, mad, muttering Free; a filthy old pack on her back filled with scavenged loot – Banana, bottle, blanket, balaclava, bread, blade, bible. She sat By a stream, filled her bottle and drank. She ate the crusts The fruit. Kingfisher. Eagle. Heron. Red deer. Midge. The Glen Darkened and cooled like History. Mrs Mackay lay in the heather Under her blanket, mumbling lines from Lear: As mad as the vex’d Sea; singing aloud; crowned with rank fumitory and furrow weeds With burdocks, hemlocks, nettles, cuckoo-flowers, darnel Syllables. Syllables. Sleep came suddenly, under the huge black The chuckling clever stars. The Head at her window looked north To the clear night sky, to Pollux and Castor, Capella, Polaris And wondered again what could have become of Mrs Mackay Rough lads from the town came up to the school to throw stones Through the glass. Miss Batt and Miss Fife had moved To a city. They drank in a dark bar where women danced, cheek To cheek. Miss Batt loved Miss Fife till she sobbed and shook In her arms. Stray cats prowled through the classrooms, lunging At mice. Miss Fife dreamed that the school was a huge ship Floating away from land, all hands lost, steered by a ghost A woman whose face was the Head’s, was Miss Nadimbaba’s Then Mrs Mackay’s, Mrs Lee’s, Miss Feaver’s, Miss Dunn’s Mrs Munro’s, Mrs Kaye’s, Miss Aherne’s, Señora Devizes’ She woke in the darkness, a face over hers, a warm mouth Kissing the gibberish from her lips. The school sank in her mind A black wave taking it down as she gazed at the woman’s face Miss Nadimbaba put down her pen and read through her poem The palms of her hands felt light, that talented ache She altered a verb and the line jumped on the page like a hooked fish. She needed To type it up, but the poem was done. She was dying To read it aloud to her aunt. She would open some wine In the hospital, a nurse brought warm milk and a pill to the Head Who stared through the bars at the blackened hulk of the school By dawn, at John O’Groats, Mrs Mackay had finally run out of land She wrote her maiden name with a stick in the sand then walked Into the sea, steady at first, step by step, till the firm waves lifted her Under the arms and danced her away like a groom with a bride High above in the cold sky the seagulls, like schoolgirls, laughed Higher again, a teacher fell through the clouds with a girl in her arms