No Talking after Lights by Angela Lambert Page A

*
    After the bell for the end of the last period before lunch, Sylvia Parry arrived in the staff-room and searched impatiently in her drawer for a cigarette. The Lower Fifth, revising biology for their imminent O levels, were whipping themselves into melodrama. Many of them were stupid or lazy, with every reason to panic about their chances, and she had lost her temper.
    â€˜For Pete’s sake, Marjorie Hilton!’ she had snapped at one vacant-faced, pony-loving girl who had been gazing out of the window. (She was dreaming of riding bareback, hair streaming in the wind, towards some ill-defined but glorious encounter.) ‘If you can’t understand osmosis by now we might as well all give up. I’d like to take hold of that stupid brain of yours and wring it out to see what, if anything, you have retained from your years of expensive education.’
    Shocked out of her fantasy, Marjorie stared at the raging figure beside the blackboard. A hand went up.
    â€˜Well, what is it now, Wendy?’
    â€˜Please, Miss Parry, shall I show Marjorie my notes and explain them to her?’
    â€˜Well, of course, if you feel you may succeed where I have manifestly failed, I shall be happy to hand my job over to you. Meanwhile I suggest we leave Marjorie to wallow in her own stupidity and get on with the next block of revision.’
    She knew she’d been unfair to them both but for God’s sake … As she took out a Craven A, Ginny Valentine said, ‘I wouldn’t if I were, you, Sylvia. There’s a note in your pigeon-hole. Looks like a summons from on high.’
    Sylvia tore open the pretentious crested envelope. It bore the school emblem, a three-masted sailing ship, and below it the motto
Fortiter, fideliter, feliciter
, bravely, faithfully, happily - Mrs Birmingham’s dreamfor her school. The note inside said, ‘Would you be good enough to come and see me before lunch? HB’
    Sylvia took an urgent drag before stubbing out her precious cigarette and slamming the door.
    â€˜Come in,’ called Mrs Birmingham with a rising inflection. ‘Ah, Miss Parry. Thank you. Do sit down. A sherry?’
    The Headmistress’s study was a serious room, lined with bookshelves and the school group photographs for the last seven years. There were also prints of Dürer’s hare and his praying hands, which economically conveyed to parents and other visitors an interest in religion, biology and art. Very few failed to recognize the prints, and only the most confident could refrain from murmuring ‘Ah, Dürer, of course…’
    Mrs Birmingham’s desk stood in front of tall windows. Light gilded her papers, the wooden IN and OUT trays, and a rectangular blotter with leather corners. Behind the desk stood a substantial chair that had once been her father’s, more like a throne than a chair, while facing it was a much smaller chair with a high, hard back. Sylvia, motioned to the small chair, sat down with only the sherry glass to differentiate her from any girl called in for a ticking-off. Miss Roberts’s desk in the other corner of the room was tactfully empty.
    â€˜I thought it time we had a chat about how things are going this term,’ the Head began neutrally. She waited, her concentration fixed and her face unsmiling.
    â€˜I’ve just come from the Lower Fifth,’ Sylvia said. ‘They seem to be up to scratch with their revision. One or two failures to be expected, of course, but that’s unavoidable.’
    â€˜Is it? I thought if we knew a girl was bound to fail we didn’t enter her for the examination. It’s bad for confidence, and bad for the school’s record.’
    â€˜Well, they’re not
certain
to fail. I’m being realistic. Pessimistic even.’
    â€˜Have you offered extra coaching? I would have to consult their parents, naturally, but few parents decline.’
    Extra coaching, dear God. And when was she supposed