left into Hawley Street. She hadn’t had a moment to really look at the school until now. It was a grimly masculine building, red bricks set off in three frugal bands by courses of hard London yellows. The windows rose from wide sills to Gothic arches; the gables were decked out with barge boards and topped with lanceolate finials. Mary thought these the most fun bits of the building: these spikes aimed skywards, impalers of trespassing angels.
She stepped from the gloom of the street into the dark of the school and used her cigarette lighter to find the switch. The bulbs came on down the corridor. Mary wrinkled her nose. There was a lot of dust, thin in the center of the corridor and deeper at the skirting boards where the draft had piled it into drifts. There were the tracks of gnawing creatures, the serpentine lines swept by their naked tails, and a crusting and crumbing of the dust where their urine had soaked and dried. All this dust, and the shuttered-school smell of inkwells and spitballs and apple cores gone rotten in desks. What could she do about it all, alone, even with soap flakes and an optimistic outlook and three days to go until Monday morning?
The quiet, too, was unsettling. Into this air multiplication tables had been recited, the changeless alphabet chanted, the four house songs sung in quadratic symmetry. The Lord’s Prayer had been intoned by impish voices with every imaginable variation and subversion. And now the unceasing hymn was struck dumb. If the war so far was a phony one, this silence was hostile and real.
She went from classroom to classroom, switching on the lights. She tried to brush off the solemn mood that was settling on her. Of course a school made one feel rather alone. The rows of desks in each room, the stacks of identical hymnals, the massed coat hooks lining the wall: the multiplicity of everything was bound to single one out.
She went first to the classroom—Kestrels Class—that had been hers in September. She realized it wouldn’t be suitable. It was robust enough, but it wasn’t close enough to a basement. She walked the corridors, opening doors until she found one that led down wooden stairs.
Belowground, the smell was older. She found superannuated atlases in tumbling piles, with the earth’s poles marked by whirlpools. There were the musty props of ancient school plays—Tuck’s staff, Banquo’s shroud, Peter Pan’s cap. A maypole lay askew, bound in its own ribbons. In the glow of her lighter’s flame the hoard stretched away into blackness. Fifty children could shelter down here if need be.
Mary knelt to sift the treasures. Here were cross-stitched samplers and moldering report cards with examination results for needlework and recitation. Here were handwriting exercises with passages dutifully copied: At the door on summer evenings sat the little Hiawatha / Heard the whispering of the pine trees / Heard the lapping of the water .
She felt five years old, and five hundred. Here was the remainder of ten thousand educations, the bones drifted down to this depth. It was the fossil of one’s country. She ached, because the war had cut the thin cord that bound each child to its ancestors with links made from cross-stitch and calligraphy. She walked up into the corridor, trembling. The school was absolutely silent. How violent it was, this peace where children’s voices should be. The ache in her chest hardened to anger, until she shook with it.
Sparrows classroom was closest to the cellar. She gauged what needed to be done. The boards would have to come off the tall windows, for a start. If a raid came—well, that was what the cellar was for, but until then her classroom would be a place of light. And the dust would have to be swept, and the mustiness purged with vigorous airing. If a ladder and paint could be found then she would get the children to restore these walls to white.
This parquet floor would scrub up, these chairs would rediscover their élan after
She stepped from the gloom of the street into the dark of the school and used her cigarette lighter to find the switch. The bulbs came on down the corridor. Mary wrinkled her nose. There was a lot of dust, thin in the center of the corridor and deeper at the skirting boards where the draft had piled it into drifts. There were the tracks of gnawing creatures, the serpentine lines swept by their naked tails, and a crusting and crumbing of the dust where their urine had soaked and dried. All this dust, and the shuttered-school smell of inkwells and spitballs and apple cores gone rotten in desks. What could she do about it all, alone, even with soap flakes and an optimistic outlook and three days to go until Monday morning?
The quiet, too, was unsettling. Into this air multiplication tables had been recited, the changeless alphabet chanted, the four house songs sung in quadratic symmetry. The Lord’s Prayer had been intoned by impish voices with every imaginable variation and subversion. And now the unceasing hymn was struck dumb. If the war so far was a phony one, this silence was hostile and real.
She went from classroom to classroom, switching on the lights. She tried to brush off the solemn mood that was settling on her. Of course a school made one feel rather alone. The rows of desks in each room, the stacks of identical hymnals, the massed coat hooks lining the wall: the multiplicity of everything was bound to single one out.
She went first to the classroom—Kestrels Class—that had been hers in September. She realized it wouldn’t be suitable. It was robust enough, but it wasn’t close enough to a basement. She walked the corridors, opening doors until she found one that led down wooden stairs.
Belowground, the smell was older. She found superannuated atlases in tumbling piles, with the earth’s poles marked by whirlpools. There were the musty props of ancient school plays—Tuck’s staff, Banquo’s shroud, Peter Pan’s cap. A maypole lay askew, bound in its own ribbons. In the glow of her lighter’s flame the hoard stretched away into blackness. Fifty children could shelter down here if need be.
Mary knelt to sift the treasures. Here were cross-stitched samplers and moldering report cards with examination results for needlework and recitation. Here were handwriting exercises with passages dutifully copied: At the door on summer evenings sat the little Hiawatha / Heard the whispering of the pine trees / Heard the lapping of the water .
She felt five years old, and five hundred. Here was the remainder of ten thousand educations, the bones drifted down to this depth. It was the fossil of one’s country. She ached, because the war had cut the thin cord that bound each child to its ancestors with links made from cross-stitch and calligraphy. She walked up into the corridor, trembling. The school was absolutely silent. How violent it was, this peace where children’s voices should be. The ache in her chest hardened to anger, until she shook with it.
Sparrows classroom was closest to the cellar. She gauged what needed to be done. The boards would have to come off the tall windows, for a start. If a raid came—well, that was what the cellar was for, but until then her classroom would be a place of light. And the dust would have to be swept, and the mustiness purged with vigorous airing. If a ladder and paint could be found then she would get the children to restore these walls to white.
This parquet floor would scrub up, these chairs would rediscover their élan after
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