everyone united in practising, running heats, making costumes, painting scenery and ensuring the school did itself justice. The second week of the summer term was not such a time. Parentsâ Weekend was still a fortnight away. The end-of-term play -
1066 and All That
- was newly cast and not fully into the swing of rehearsals. Yet beneath the tide of school routine the minor dramas of friendship,rivalry and deceit preoccupied each girl. These could stir up intense passions which were usually dismissed by the staff as adolescent hysteria or sulks.
School friendships were conducted according to a rigid code. Best friends walked in twos, sat next to each other in lessons and at meals, met each otherâs parents and from then on always sent their love in letters. At bedtime they said good night to each other last of all. With Charmian avoiding her, Sheila would have liked to respond to Constanceâs timid approach, but she was still Charmieâs best friend. Walking with anyone else would have been disloyal. Until the breach had been established by silence, tears, sulks, sympathy and a final row, with every member of the class taking sides and new pairs of friends emerging, it would only have made her unpopular. It was different when Charmie scampered off arm-in-arm with someone else, because everyone knew Charmie was a flirt. Sheila was the solid one, the reliable one, the rock of the relationship. All she could do was stick to the rules.
Life in the Reynoldsâ home had been different during the last Easter holidays. Charmian didnât say so, because it was something she dared not acknowledge. Her parents had made an effort to behave normally and conceal their estrangement from her. They only had rows at night when Charmian was supposed to be asleep. Charmian had to lie to herself, ignoring what was obviously going on. It was like standing at the edge of the sea when the tide is coming in and the sand trickles away between your toes, throwing you off balance. So she turned on her friend, becoming deceitful because she was being deceived.
None of the grown-ups took these little melodramas seriously. Childhood, after all, is an innocent, unclouded time. Children are like tumbling puppiesor singing birds. Even the most loving and sensitive parents, grannies or teachers assume that adolescent emotions are undeveloped and fleeting. How
could
they be serious, funny little monkeys? It was a tiresome phase and of course they all exaggerated wildly, but thank goodness it didnât last. Adults have forgotten the agony of growing up, when feelings are vast and incomprehensible, primitive and turbulent. Sheila and Constance suffered stoically and in silence, while Charmian vented her anger and pain on her best friend.
Every day was divided into meals and lessons and Rest; letters and parcels; sport and play; Prayers and mufti; hobbies, pets, bath-time, hair-washing and bed. Each segment of time was signalled by the heavy clanging of the bell.
Every week a different prefect had the job of bell-ringing. She had to walk - the school rules said girls must walk, never run, not even in case of fire - from her form-room or dormitory down to the cupboard in the Covered Way (which the squits, for this reason, innocently called the Cupboard Way) where the bell was kept. She would grasp its smooth wooden handle with both hands and hurl the sound in all directions, deafened by its great double thunderbolts. Its clangour would reach the form-rooms, the lavatories and changing-rooms, where girls were dreaming or conspiring; it would reverberate high up on the top floor and across the lawns, commanding people to return from the swimming-pool and tennis courts. Everyone obeyed, for without the bellâs regular, impersonal ringing, the school would have collapsed into chaos. Everyone could chant the school timetable: Nine-oh, nine-forty, ten-twenty, theyâd mutter (now comes Break), eleven-twenty-five, twelve-five.
* *
1066 and All That
- was newly cast and not fully into the swing of rehearsals. Yet beneath the tide of school routine the minor dramas of friendship,rivalry and deceit preoccupied each girl. These could stir up intense passions which were usually dismissed by the staff as adolescent hysteria or sulks.
School friendships were conducted according to a rigid code. Best friends walked in twos, sat next to each other in lessons and at meals, met each otherâs parents and from then on always sent their love in letters. At bedtime they said good night to each other last of all. With Charmian avoiding her, Sheila would have liked to respond to Constanceâs timid approach, but she was still Charmieâs best friend. Walking with anyone else would have been disloyal. Until the breach had been established by silence, tears, sulks, sympathy and a final row, with every member of the class taking sides and new pairs of friends emerging, it would only have made her unpopular. It was different when Charmie scampered off arm-in-arm with someone else, because everyone knew Charmie was a flirt. Sheila was the solid one, the reliable one, the rock of the relationship. All she could do was stick to the rules.
Life in the Reynoldsâ home had been different during the last Easter holidays. Charmian didnât say so, because it was something she dared not acknowledge. Her parents had made an effort to behave normally and conceal their estrangement from her. They only had rows at night when Charmian was supposed to be asleep. Charmian had to lie to herself, ignoring what was obviously going on. It was like standing at the edge of the sea when the tide is coming in and the sand trickles away between your toes, throwing you off balance. So she turned on her friend, becoming deceitful because she was being deceived.
None of the grown-ups took these little melodramas seriously. Childhood, after all, is an innocent, unclouded time. Children are like tumbling puppiesor singing birds. Even the most loving and sensitive parents, grannies or teachers assume that adolescent emotions are undeveloped and fleeting. How
could
they be serious, funny little monkeys? It was a tiresome phase and of course they all exaggerated wildly, but thank goodness it didnât last. Adults have forgotten the agony of growing up, when feelings are vast and incomprehensible, primitive and turbulent. Sheila and Constance suffered stoically and in silence, while Charmian vented her anger and pain on her best friend.
Every day was divided into meals and lessons and Rest; letters and parcels; sport and play; Prayers and mufti; hobbies, pets, bath-time, hair-washing and bed. Each segment of time was signalled by the heavy clanging of the bell.
Every week a different prefect had the job of bell-ringing. She had to walk - the school rules said girls must walk, never run, not even in case of fire - from her form-room or dormitory down to the cupboard in the Covered Way (which the squits, for this reason, innocently called the Cupboard Way) where the bell was kept. She would grasp its smooth wooden handle with both hands and hurl the sound in all directions, deafened by its great double thunderbolts. Its clangour would reach the form-rooms, the lavatories and changing-rooms, where girls were dreaming or conspiring; it would reverberate high up on the top floor and across the lawns, commanding people to return from the swimming-pool and tennis courts. Everyone obeyed, for without the bellâs regular, impersonal ringing, the school would have collapsed into chaos. Everyone could chant the school timetable: Nine-oh, nine-forty, ten-twenty, theyâd mutter (now comes Break), eleven-twenty-five, twelve-five.
* *
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