The Woman Who Walked Into Doors (4 page)

I left school after my Group. I ran out of the place; I fuckin' hated it. I stuck it for three years, longer than any of my own kids have done, so far. But I hated it, every minute of it. I loved the primary school. Probably because we had only the one teacher and she was lovely. I can't remember her name, but she was lovely. We all wanted to be teachers when we grew up. It was just girls, fifty-four of us. The noise in the room when the teacher wasn't there, fifty-four screaming young ones. I was good in school, especially at stories. She always got me to read mine out to the class, before she'd even read it herself. I loved that.

—Ah Miss —

—Ah come on.

—I don't want to.

—Ah come on.

She knew I was dying to get up and go to the front of the class but she went along with it.

—Do we want to hear Paula's story, girls?

—Yesss!

Fifty-three voices.

I don't remember any of the stories. What were they about? There's nothing there in my head, nothing. But I remember the applause after and the smiles. I was good in school; she made us think that we were good.

I was only in the tech half an hour when I realised that I wasn't good at all. September, 1969 — after Courtown. We were all kept out in the yard when the older classes were let in. The headmaster stood on the steps and told us to shut up. He didn't tell us who he was; I just guessed that he was the headmaster. He read out all the class lists.

—Class 1.1. As follows. One last time. Shut up.

I was in 1.6, the second lowest.

—O'Leary, Paula.

There were only twenty more left in the yard. I think it started raining. I went past him through the door.

—You'll have the proper socks for Monday, Miss O'Leary, won't you?

—Yeah.

—Yes is the word we use here, Miss O'Leary.

—Yes.

—We also say Sir. Off you go. Down that way. The open door.

Mister O'Driscoll. I remember all the teachers' names. There wasn't one of them that wasn't an out-and-out cunt. The men and women, they were all the same, cunts. Cunts. I hated them. The night before my first day Carmel told me all about them. I didn't really want to hear; she was ruining it.

—He's a creep. He never looks at your face and there's a smell off him.

But she was right. Everything she said was true.

—My name is Mister Waters. W.A.T.E.R.S.

—A dope, said Carmel. —He thinks he's so smart. There's sweat stains under his arms when he's writing on the blackboard. Right through his jacket. He'll spell his name and say something smart about it, wait and see.

—WA.T.E.R.S. You
are
1.6 but you should be able to remember that one.

All the different teachers, I hated it. It was much better with just one. I never got used to it. Just one stupid cunt after another stupid cunt all day long. In a smelly room that was either too hot or too cold. I was put beside Derek O'Leary because our names were the same and he walked into the room just before me. He farted all day. Lifted his arse for noise, the dirty bastard. Buck teeth. A smell of sardines out of his mouth. He kept trying to feel me till I punched him in the face and told him to fuck off. I was made to stand up for making noise.

—Well, Paula; it's not very pleasant, is it?

After standing for half an hour.

—No, Miss.

—Sit down.

—Thanks, Miss.

Derek O'Leary gawked over at me and opened his stupid mouth.

—There's a smell o' periods off yeh.

—There's a smell o' shite off you.

—Periods.

—Shite.

—Periods.

—Shite.

For three years.

—Good God, what did they teach you in that primary school?

We were the dopes, the thicks. There was only one class after us, 1.7. They were nearly retarded. You could tell. We were put with them for Domestic Science. You could tell by the way they held their mixing bowls, something not quite right. Two of them were crosseyed; three of them had stammers. Two of them got pregnant in second year. It was a big thing in those days. They sat beside each other; it was weird. They left school on the same day; they were called out of the class. We were making Christmas cakes. I think. Putting the almond paste on them. They never came back. We said that it was the same fella that made the two of them pregnant. We even pointed him out, a big mallet-head that worked in the butchers. We made him the father. We made him the fathers. He didn't have a name. The butcher, Mister McQuaid — he's still there — never called him anything. He carried the carcasses in and out of the fridge but he never cut anything. Mister McQuaid probably wouldn't let him; it would have been bad for business. The girls were called Sandra Collins and Bernadette Ryan. They never came back. Leanne, my second youngest, started secondary this year. She's in a class called Carolin, after an old Irish harp player. All the classes are named after Irish musicians. We were just 1.6. We got the worst room and the worst teachers, the dopes. They were thicker than us.

It was a fright, finding out that I was stupid. Before I even got in the door. He read out the names, through the Fs and the Gs, up towards the Os, and first five times he went past me and the yard got emptier and emptier. And I wanted to cry. I had all my books. They were all in my bag; it weighed a ton. My uniform, except the socks. Bottle green; I loved it. And it started to rain. All my friends except Fiona had gone through the door into the school. And I didn't like Fiona as much as the others. She was full of herself.

—1.6. Brady, Harold. Brady, Frances. Brannigan, Martin.

It was mostly boys.

—They're all horrible, said Fiona. —Look it.

I was too busy listening, going through the alphabet with the headmaster.

—O'Leary.

I picked up my bag.

—Derek.

I let go of the handle.

—O'Leary, Paula.

The corridor went on forever. I was following Derek O'Leary. He kept looking back. I wanted to go home. I wanted my mammy. I walked in the door. My arm was sore from carrying the bag. A woman teacher pointed at one of the desks that was still empty.

—There.

Derek O'Leary was sitting down by the time I got there. He wouldn't move.

—Move over, you, I said.

He wouldn't.

—Hey, said the teacher.

He slid into the wall and I sat down. Miss Harrison was the teacher. She sat up at the front and clicked her fingers when anyone talked until no one else came through the door. Then she got up and shut the door.

—Right.

She went to the blackboard.

—Take this down, all of you. No talking.

She was young. That was a good sign, I thought. She wore nice clothes. She was tall. Her hair was up in a shiny bun, like something plastic and black. She wrote Monday on the top of the board and the timetable under it.

—Okay; get that down, all of you.

—Are you Miss Harrison?

—No talking.

She read her newspaper.

—Right.

She rubbed out what was on the board and wrote Tuesday on the top.

—Okay.

—What's M.W.?

—No talking; metalwork.

She didn't look at us. She didn't ask our names. She didn't ask us if we'd had nice holidays or if we were nervous. She was just horrible. I felt Derek O'Leary's hand on my leg. I got away from him. I heard him sucking his snot back into his stupid head. Then I felt his fingers again, taking the material of my skirt. I sat sideways to get my legs away from him. I wouldn't look at him; he was disgusting. Miss Harrison was doing Wednesday but I hadn't been able to get Tuesday down because of Derek O'Leary. He grabbed me again, right up my leg this time because I was turned away from him. It frightened me this time; he wanted to hurt me. I punched him right in the face.

—Fuck off, you, righ'.

He screamed and held his face like it was falling off him.

—What's going on over there? Stand up, the pair of you.

—It was her.

—Shut up.

She came over to our desk. She stared at us, at him and especially at me. I looked back at her. She went back to the desk and picked up the roll book. She looked at me again.

—Carmel O'Leary's sister, she said. —Yes?

—Yes, Miss.

—Another one.

She let Derek O'Leary sit down and she made me stand up for the rest of the class. Carmel had been right about her.

—She has an ice-pop stick stuck up her hole.

She was a stuck-up cow. She put on this face when she walked into the room as if there was a bad smell coming up off us.

—You. Get the windowpole.

She sprayed her perfume around the room one wet day when the coats were on the hooks and the air was warm and soggy. She never corrected our homework; she made us leave our copies open on the right page but she never really looked at them. The only time she ever treated us like real people was the day she came in with her new engagement ring.

—It's gorgeous, Miss.

—How many stones?

—Count them yourself, yeh thick.

We stood around her desk at the front, just the girls, and she smiled and smiled.

—Back to your seats now, girls.

We wanted it to last.

—Is your husband nice, Miss?

—She hasn't married him yet, yeh thick.

—Shut up, you.

—Sit down now, come on; all of you.

That was in the middle of third year, two and a half years after she'd made me stand up. She was back to her normal cuntishness the next day. She had us for maths. I hadn't a clue. It didn't make sense and she didn't care. History, geography, English, Irish — I got worse and worse at all of them. I don't think I learnt one new thing after I went to that school. I wasn't too bad at Domestic Science. She wore a hat in the class, Miss Travers, because she was cold. She was as mad as shite. We spent the whole afternoon cleaning the kitchen, cleaning up the mess left by the older classes. She could never time her classes properly; we'd be just dropping our beaten eggs into the flour when the bell would go.

—Is that the first or the second, girls?

—The second.

—Oh Lord God, time flies when you're enjoying yourself.

She was the best of them. She was wired to the moon but she was harmless. At least she tried to remember our names. She usually got them wrong. She called me Michael once. There were no boys in the class and, I'm not boasting, I never looked like a boy. A mad oul' bitch. She's dead now, Carmel told me. She fell off a mountain in Wales on her holidays. The best thing I remember about that class is Dympna McQuaid, during the Group Cert exam. She had to make a salad, and she did it, finished it perfectly; Travers was sitting on her stool in a corner and she saw that Dympna had managed to get the hard-boiled egg out of its shell and had cut the lettuce without getting blood all over the table — you should have seen the head on Dympna — and she smiled at Dympna and gave her a little soundless burst of applause — and Dympna went over to the oven, turned on the grill and put the salad in under it before the inspector could get over there and stop her. I'd never smelt burning lettuce before.

Mister Dillon for history and geography. He'd a big drip of snot hanging off the end of his nose all through the winter. You could see the classroom lights in it if he was near enough to you. And he liked getting near enough to us. He'd make us move over and sit beside us and squash in and pretend it was playing; wasn't it great fun, him and some of the boys the only ones laughing, the dirty cunt. Now and again he got us to open our books and we'd read a bit of history. He was filling in our Christmas reports; we were colouring in a picture of someone famous from the French Revolution. I remember the page; 157.

—Pink for the face, remember, boys and girls. There were no darkies among the leaders of the Revolution.

He held his fountain pen over the first report sheet.

—Now.

He wanted us to look.

—A good comment for a kiss. Any offers?

My guts still curl up when I think about it.

Someone pointed at Derek O'Leary.

—He'll give you one. Sir.

—I will in me — I will not!

—That's not what you said last night.

—Enough!

Mister Dillon was in charge again. He's still there. I saw him getting into his car about two years ago. I couldn't see the drip on his nose but he was still wearing the same jacket.

Mister Waters for English. He'd flick through the book.

—What's the point? What's the point? You don't care about poetry, do you; any of you?

—No, Sir.

The prick; I was good at English until he came along with his Brylcream head. He never let us forget that we were dense, that we were a waste of his time. Another ladies' man; he put his hand on my shoulder once and he kept it there and kept it there while he bent over and changed Their to There.

—Tut tut.

He must have felt my heart thudding; he must have.

—Any more Theirs where there should be Theres; mmm?

He pressed his thumb into me. He dragged it over my bra-strap.

—Or Theres where there should be Theirs.

There was nothing exciting about it, a grown-up man feeling me, feeling me while he was correcting my mistakes. The thumb said that he could hurt me, mat was all. And I knew the difference between There and Their; I knew it long before I went anywhere near that fuckin' school.

The ones mat weren't perverts were either thick or bored or women. That was the only good thing about the women teachers; they didn't mess around with you. They hit us sometimes but it was ordinary hitting. We had Miss Dempsey for English in third year. After two years of no poetry, now we did nothing else. She got annoyed when we didn't like it; she'd wallop us with her book. She couldn't control us; she hadn't a clue.

—Fuck off hittin' me!

Gus Kinsella yelled that after she'd hit him on the loaf with her duster. She had her own duster that she brought everywhere with her. We said it was her Christmas present from her boyfriend. The boys had a different version; it was for wiping her arse and keeping her gee dry — she only used it as a duster because she needed the chalk. She should have walked out of the room and gone down to the headmaster when Gus Kinsella said that. She should just have walked out. She would have terrified us, especially Gus Kinsella; he was far worse than Derek O'Leary. She didn't, though. She was too scared. She was trapped. She couldn't report on us because she'd have been reporting on herself. It was the same for all of them. She was a hopeless poor clown. She was better man Brylcream-head, though.