We're so pleased to have a further instalment of The Incident by Maggie Redding to share with you today. If you'd like to read the preceding episodes, just check for Maggie's tag and they'll show up in the archive. Intriguing stuff is developing over coffee in the staff room of Hill Common School...
Elin Lewis Jones was visiting Hill Common School again the following morning. Vida saw her as soon as she went into the staff-room. With that hair, she was recognizable from far away and wearing a turquoise top, she could hardly be missed.. Vida’s instinct was to withdraw but she was too late. She’d been spotted. Elin strode over to greet her.
‘Good to see you again,’ she said. ‘Shall we sort out some coffee and continue our chat?’
‘Our chat? What about?’ Vida frowned. She was less than eager.
‘You were telling me how you came into teaching.’
‘I don’t recall telling you much.’
‘Exactly. I’d like to hear more, about your mother wanting you to be a teacher, for instance.’
Elin spotted the two upright chairs, in a corner, unoccupied. She led the way over to them.
‘My mother,’ Vida began as she sat down, ’she was a machinist, in the fashion industry, in north London. She and her friend were fast, highly skilled, much in demand, well-paid, too. That was some time ago. We weren’t poor, but life was difficult for her.’
She looked at Elin and had to look away again, not knowing why. ‘Mum wanted a better future for me, you see. A job that’s non-manual, she used to say. Actually, me being mixed race, she wanted to be able to show off about me, not be ashamed, as I think she was. But she wasn’t prepared to make the required effort.’
‘But, teaching? Was she right?’ Elin leaned forward a little. ‘Was it a good move?’ She seemed not to want to know the reason for her hardly veiled bitterness about her mother’s ambitions for her.
‘I have grave doubts now.’ She gazed out of the tall window. An unblemished blue sky evoked memories of past late spring days, free of all that trapped her now. Yet there had been other traps in those days. She preferred not to dwell on those. ‘It breaks my heart, at times,’ she said, all caution dismissed in the presence of someone who understood, ‘the way the pupils are spoken about. And spoken to. I don't know whether it's ever too late to help anybody.’ She glanced at Elin shyly. Could she trust her with confidences? Would Elin laugh at her ideas? This was an intense conversation to have with a complete stranger. She hoped none of the staff around them heard the exchange. She guessed that Kelly would have little sympathy for her views. They seethed, her colleagues, they floundered in the staff-room, like a restless sea, their repressed rage justified by a confidence, an arrogance. The room was stuffy. The windows were all closed to keep out the noise of unconstrained pupils yelling in the grounds.
‘You're an optimist about the pupils, then,’ Elin said. ‘Or maybe the whole of humankind? However, in my case, with my job, the gesture of helping them, trying to remove impediments to learning, has to be made. The poor little sods are thoroughly fucked up by both parents and teachers by the time they get to secondary school, if not before that. Then it’s too late to help, I think.’ Elin turned to look at her with a relaxed, friendly expression. ‘What do you think?’
‘Not being a parent myself, I don't feel qualified to blame them. I’m frankly not impressed with the way some teachers treat pupils.’
‘I have never wondered where bullying in schools originates.’ Elin spoke with satisfaction before taking a sip of coffee.
‘You mean with us, with the teachers?’
She nodded then made an impatient movement with her whole body. ‘I've a good mind to bugger off to Wales, to live on fresh air and views. Starvation can't be worse than the expectations put on me.’ She glanced at Vida, smiling again. Her eyes were soft, warm, a pale green, interesting, interested, all-seeing eyes. Her eyelashes, paler than her hair, were barely visible.
‘Excuse the language,’ Elin was saying, ‘frustration, poor vocabulary plus a healthy dose of your previous Head of Department‘s cynicism. How long have you been teaching?’
‘Nearly ten years in total. It feels like a lifetime. I had a break when I looked after my mother before she died. But what else can I do?’
‘Become an Ed. Psych?’
‘You’ve just put me off that. Besides, I like the kids.’
Elin was kind, she encouraged her to talk. She understood her attitude to teaching, to the school, to the pupils.
‘You could always foster children,’ she said.
‘Oh, I don’t think so,’ Vida said as an image of Peter rose in her mind. Peter was not keen on children. To her relief, further discussion was avoided by the bell for the end of break, destroying the peace of mind of anyone in the room who had that rare commodity. Harassed faces with set jaws were sucked to far reaches of the campus, as the staff abandoned mugs, biscuit crumbs, strewn papers, and books on every surface. Chairs were left in disarray.
Uneasy, now that she’d revealed herself in a way she’d never done before, Vida wandered to a classroom full of, as yet, mostly unspoiled, twelve-year-olds. She’d opened-up, to Elin. She was as comfortable as if she had been naked. She wished she hadn’t spoken so freely. Her own opinions were disturbing to her, as though she’d said something that wasn’t allowed.
Despite this private angst, the exchange with Elin Lewis Jones was the most pleasant encounter since she’d joined the school. Kelly was lovely, but someone to be wary of when it came to views on education. Elin wasn’t part of the staff-room politics that so bothered Vida. She had an easy-going manner, Elin did.
