The countryside outside the window is rolling and wooded and I get quite excited as I see all those exotic names I have only read about in divorce actions: Guildford, Godalming, Haslemere. I can’t really believe that a posh school like St Rodence will accept a simple girl from Chingford—or West Woodford as Mum prefers to call it. The whole thing is probably just a dream. Anyway, it will make a nice day in the country.
“Fudgely. Change here for Milldrew and all stations to Rotting Parva.”
Here already? It seemed only a second ago we were pulling out of Petersfield. I grab my bag and stumble out into the corridor. Beside me are two girls wearing gymslips. It is funny but they look just like the two girls wearing tank tops and sequined hot pants who were waiting outside the toilet when I wanted to get in. Not quite as much eye make-up, though.
“Oh, well, back to the crummy old dump,” sighs one of them. “Still, at least we’ve got a few memories.”
“You bet,” sighs the other one. “You can’t beat the Yanks when it comes to lobbing the lolly about.” They push in front of me and jump off the train while it is still moving. I can hear them shouting for a taxi as they run out of the station.
“Rosie, darling!” Penny comes out of the refreshment room with a glass of gin and tonic in her hands and kisses me on both cheeks. She is very upper class like that. “I never expected the train to be on time. Let me look at you. You look ghastly! Where did you get that suit from? You don’t look old enough to have been in the land army.”
“I got it specially,” I say, feeling hurt. “I thought I’d better turn up in something fairly sober.”
“Sober!?” Penny knocks back her drink and hands the glass to a surprised porter. “That’s enough to put you off the stuff for life. You could be mistaken for a member of the staff wearing that.”
“That’s the idea,” I say.
“I know, I know. I was only teasing. Grimmers will love you—if she can see you. She’s been knocking it back a bit lately.”
“She drinks?” I say.
“Like a fish. You can’t blame her though. My God, I’d drink if I didn’t have sex to keep me going.” Penny smiles at the man on the barrier and pushes me towards a battered sports car. “You kept your ticket, didn’t you? Good. You can use it again next time.”
“If there is a next time,” I say.
“Don’t worry, darling. At this place you usually get the job by bothering to telephone. There’s a chronic shortage of teachers you know. Most of them have got more sense than to work at Dothegirls Hall.”
“Dothegirls Hall?”
“You remember Dotheboys Hall? It was in Nicholas Nickleby or Great Expectations or Biggles Flies East—I can’t remember which. I’ve stopped taking English this term.”
“English? I thought you were games mistress.”
“Oh I am, but you have to be flexible here. When Miss Carstairs ran off with the man who came to mend the boiler I had to fill the gap that he was filling—if you know what I mean.” Penny turns to me and winks and we narrowly miss a furniture van.
“Is there a large turnover of staff here?” I ask.
“Yes and no,” says Penny. “There are the elderly dead beats who stay here because they know they will never get a job anywhere else—and can’t be bothered anyway—and the dynamic young graduates who want to turn the educational system upside down and leave, disillusioned after two weeks.”
“Which lot do you fit into?” I ask.
“Oh, there’s a third category of escaped convicts, murderers and retired female impersonators—nice countryside, isn’t it?”
“Lovely,” I say. “I gathered from your letter that you’ve met a few locals?”
“Yes, the area isn’t badly equipped hunk-wise. One of my little chums hangs out over there. Do you want to pop in and say hello?” Penny indicates a collection of low, ramshackle buildings with a sign outside saying Branwell Riding Stables.
“I don’t think I’ve got time,” I say. “Miss Grimshaw is expecting me at twelve.”
“Don’t worry about that,” says Penny swinging the wheel over. “She’ll expect the train to be half an hour late. Anyway, I bet she’s already started glugging down her lunch. You don’t usually get much sense out of her after ten o’clock.”
“But—”
“Don’t worry, darling. This isn’t Queen Adelaide’s. We live life at a slower pace down here—oops! Did I get it?” I watch the chicken dive under the barn door and shake my head.
“This guy is called Guy Hark-Bach,” continues Penny, unperturbed, “I met him at the hunter trials.”
“Did they get off?” I ask.
“You’re terribly unspoilt, aren’t you?” muses Penny after a moments silence. “Come on, let’s squeeze a quick G. and T. out of the old horse dropping.”
I don’t know what she is talking about but I meekly follow her into a building that looks like a good pull-in for tennis court marking machines—like primitive.
“Penelope, mon ange, what scented zephyr wafts you into my aegis?”
For a moment I think that the fella must be speaking manx. Then I grab the peakless cap pulled low over the nose and the hounds-tooth hacking jacket and I realise it must be Penny’s mate.
“Guy, if I didn’t know you well I’d think you were an idiot. And if I did know you well I’d be ashamed of myself.” Penny smiles sweetly. “While you think about that I’d like to introduce you to someone I used to nurse with at Queen Adelaide’s. Rose Dixon.”
“Not another outbreak of food poisoning, I hope?” murmurs Guy, brushing the back of my hand with his lips.
“Rosie has come to teach, not nurse,” says Penny. “There’s no need to be unkind about the school cuisine. Just because you found a fly in your soup when you had supper with us.”
“It wasn’t the fly I was worried about,” says Guy. “It was the cockroach that was eating it.”
“Guy has an exquisite sense of humour as you can see,” purrs Penny.
“‘Sense of humour’ nothing!” spits Guy. “The farmers round here haven’t forgiven your girls for the last outbreak of Foot and Mouth Disease.”
“They were carriers?” I ask.
“They were originators.”
“Absolute nonsense!” snaps Penny. “Foot and Mouth Disease can’t be transmitted by human beings.”
“You want further proof?” says Guy.
“Guy, don’t be ridiculous. These stories about the school are totally without foundation. The minute the Health Inspector came out of the maximum care unit he said that reports of a smallpox epidemic were vastly exaggerated.”
“Yes, but he was delirious at the time.”
“That’s a lovely horse,” I say. Shrewd readers will observe that I am trying to do a mum and steer the conversation into less controversial waters.
“What? Oh yes. Yes, he is a handsome beast, isn’t he? Served a few mares right in his time, I can tell you.”
“Uuuhm,” says Penny. She sucks in her breath. “I always find gees very sexy, don’t you? Steaming