she wishes he’d put it away, it feels personal, embarrassing
she wants to talk to Kate and Margo about it, would they be interested, sympathetic or even understand? they didn’t seem to notice her colour, or at least never mention it
she wants to tell them it’s like she’s personally being attacked by the media
that women clutch their bags nervously when they pass her in the street or she sits next to them on the bus, when she’s never stolen so much as a penny from her mother’s purse, a rite of passage for most kids, or even a pencil from the school’s stationery cupboard, let alone toilet paper from public places, a common crime at university, whole rolls of it stuffed up jumpers or into bags by flatmates who were, she remonstrated, as they offloaded their spoils on to the kitchen table, common-or-garden thieves
Shirley tries not to succumb to the paranoia that comes from thinking every negative reaction is due to her skin colour
her mother told her she’ll never know for sure why people take against her unless they spell it out, don’t assume people don’t like you because of your race, Shirl, maybe they’re having a rough day or they’re bad-tempered people
Shirley maintains a charm offensive of politeness, even to those colleagues who take against her like Tina Lowry (PE), who removes herself whenever Shirley sits next to her
and Roy Stevenson (Physics) who let the door slam in her face three times for her to be sure it really was intentional
and Penelope Halifax (Biology, Head of Sixth) who ignores Shirley’s (dwindling) attempts at greeting in the school corridors where Penelope sweeps imperiously past her like a Dowager Grand Duchess from Imperial Russia passing a lowly peasant
Penelope
is the only woman to speak up at staff meetings where everyone sits in a large circle in the assembly hall that doubles as a gym and canteen, and smells of fresh sweat and stale cabbage
whose superior voice slices through the booming alpha-male teachers
who like to bat balls at each other across the circular court with the ferocity of tennis professionals and when Shirley and the other women try to interject, their less assertive voices struggle to be heard, are cut off by the alphas before they’ve even finished making their points
even Kate, who is otherwise garrulous, is shut up
Shirley abhors the fact that they’re all pathetically resigned to letting the men, and Penelope
make decisions for the rest of them
this late May afternoon
after the sound of a thousand pairs of feet have stampeded out of the building and down the drive leaving the school in a post-traumatic silence
Penelope addresses the issue of the school’s poor exam performance, declaring that half the kids are so thick and badly behaved they should be suspended or even expelled from school
everyone knows which half she means
Penelope is known to give the misbehaving Pete Bennetts of this world detention, whereas the Winston Blackstocks are suspended
the first step towards expulsion
she should be forcibly retired, in Shirley’s opinion
out with the Oldies
in with the New Order
the young guns
her
Shirley decides it’s time to step up and speak out
I disagree, Penelope, we mustn’t write them off, she says, feeling her mouth dry up as the alpha males start to shuffle in their seats
I believe in making society more equal for our kids, she ploughs on, ignoring pointed coughs telling her to get on with it or shut up
our kids, she emphasizes (the possibility of shared ownership), have been told they’re failures, thick, as you put it, before they’ve proven otherwise
exams are all well and good but not everyone performs well under pressure or manifests their intelligence at a young age, it can be acquired later, you know, nurtured by us, we have to be more than teachers, we have to look after them, believe in them
if we don’t help them, who will
Penelope?
a thrilled, hushed stillness animates the room
Penelope doesn’t disappoint, I, for one, am not a social worker, she replies in a tone that affects great weariness at Shirley’s obvious naïveté and dim-wittedness, and I really think you need more than two terms on the job before you challenge someone with fifteen years’ experience to a duel
someone who actually knows what she’s talking about
now
as
I
was
saying.
3
Shirley’s rants about Penelope dominate her conversation with Lennox that evening, as they will many others
while he’s cooking a Thai chicken coconut curry in the kitchen, she sits at the tiny fold-up table next to the door that opens on to their small yard overlooked by the back windows of similarly poky terraced flats
the smell of sliced shallots and minced garlic sizzles in the pan
when they moved into the rented flat the couple upstairs complained they’d never smelt anything so disgusting in over seventy years
well now you have, Shirley thought, shutting the door on them
intelligence is not innate, Lennox, it’s acquired, in spite of what Penelope thinks, having a go at me in front of everyone, and she dares to call herself a feminist?
Shirley takes a sip of her cold Lucozade this unduly warm May evening
I’m not a snob, as well you know, I went to grammar school, come from working-class stock and believe in egalitarianism über alles, not to be confused with being a communist, of course, I know enough about Stalin and Mao to be disabused of any fantasies in that direction
at the same time, the truth is that hierarchies of power and privilege won’t disappear, every historian knows this, it’s innate to human nature and inherent in all societies in all eras and equally manifests in the animal kingdom, so I can’t pretend otherwise
my job as a teacher is to help those who are disadvantaged
Lennox stirs in the red curry paste and grated ginger
she admires his straight back, his blue office shirt, collar undone, stomach nicely contained within the parameters of his belt, the rest of his body contoured in all the right places: shoulders, biceps, bum, thighs, calves, courtesy of regular gym visits
she’d wanted a man who looked like he could carry her, physically, not metaphorically
she’d wanted a man who’d treat her as equal, who was responsible with a sensible career plan (solicitor) and didn’t drink (much), smoke (never), do drugs (only once) or gamble (not even the pools)
Lennox coats the skinless chicken pieces in the sauce of lemongrass, lime leaves and coconut milk, the meal will be delicious, it usually is as Lennox follows recipes to a T
he doesn’t believe in taking risks, neither does she
at least grammar schools attempted to level the playing field, Lennox, she continues, and made it possible for brighter children to receive a better education
or else those public school boys would still be running the show as if it was the 1890s and not the 1980s
Lennox scoops basmati rice out of the value sack they keep in the larder, deposits it in a chipped enamel saucepan of boiling water on the two-ring stove
a case in point is our nation’s current Commander-in-chief, who’d never have made it to the top of the political pile otherwise, love her or loathe her, it’s the principle of social mobility I’m arguing here
Lennox chops coriander stalks and sprinkles them on top of their steaming plates, tries out a different international dish most nights, which is the only travelling they can afford while saving for a mortgage
they’ve journeyed through the Mediterranean and the Middle East, and recently leapfrogged over to South East Asia
she can’t wait to savour the rich creaminess of the curry as it slides down her throat
they’ll make love tonight, and once they’re homeowners, they’ll make babies
their hips found each other’s dancing to Ken Boothe and John Holt spinning on the turntable of a basement blues in Chapeltown with wall-to-wall speakers, a pot of curry goat in the kitchen, and rammed with all the other Afro-Caribbean youngsters who couldn’t get past the bouncers of the clubs elsewhere in the city