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2 The staff room is stuffed with sofas, tables, armchairs, coat racks and cork noticeboards studded with rotas for monitoring the breaks, postcards, fire evacuation instructions and a poster of a topless girl, barely sixteen, if that teachers are coming and going, children are knocking on the door for this or that, answered by one or other annoyed member of staff, what is it now, Moira-Billy-Mona-Ruthine-Leroy? can't we have our lunch in peace for once? Shirley endures the fug of foul-smelling smoke without complaint, even though her eyes smart and her hair stinks so badly she has to wash it every night such a scruffy lot, these teachers, she thinks, sitting neatly in her prim skirts and court shoes, watching them eat their cheese and tomato sandwiches or pork pies or Cornish pasties, instead of the disgusting slush served up in the school canteen while she eats her salt-fish, sliced plantain and sourdough bun concoctions hoping no one will notice, hates having to explain herself to her left is Margo (Geography) who wears flowery-flowing dresses and her hippy hair long with two thin plaits wrapped halo-like around her

forehead she's teaching for as long as it takes to fund an overland spiritual voyage to an ashram in Goa, where she's going to find herself (first) and a husband (second) and leave this, this, she gesticulates they started together, were allies against the Oldies, most of whom don't even know what pedagogical means Shirley likes Margo because Flower-Power Margo likes and accepts her on Shirley's other side is Kate (English Literature), her other friend, determined to make headmistress before she turns thirty-five, delivered with such conviction, both Shirley and Margo can only nod their heads, of course Kate is going make head teacher, having been raised by politician parents who said everything with conviction, according to Kate, who either had to match their confidence or be crushed by it the bear-like John Clayton (Maths) sits opposite, sporting a beard that could house a legion of lice, a dirty-looking denim jacket, threadbare corduroy trousers and scuffed Jesus-creepers on his enormous feet hardly setting an example to the kids, although she does like him – shambolic, apologetic, nice to her, which, she admits, is all it takes he's reading a newspaper, its front page emblazoned with a police mug- shot of a black youth looking wild-eyed and menacing from across the ashtrays and tea-stained mugs on the coffee table she wishes he'd put it away, it feels personal, embarrassing she wants to talk to Kate and Margo about it, would they be interested, sympathetic or even understand? they didn't seem to notice her colour, or at least never mention it she wants to tell them it's like she's personally being attacked by the media that women clutch their bags nervously when they pass her in the street or she sits next to them on the bus, when she's never stolen so much as a penny from her mother's purse, a rite of passage for most kids, or even a pencil from the school's stationery cupboard, let alone toilet paper from public places, a common crime at university, whole rolls of it stuffed up jumpers or into bags by flatmates who were, she remonstrated, as they offloaded their spoils on to the kitchen table, common-or-garden thieves Shirley tries not to succumb to the paranoia that comes from thinking every negative reaction is due to her skin colour

her mother told her she'll never know for sure why people take against her unless they spell it out, don't assume people don't like you because of your race, Shirl, maybe they're having a rough day or they're bad-tempered people Shirley maintains a charm offensive of politeness, even to those colleagues who take against her like Tina Lowry (PE), who removes herself whenever Shirley sits next to her and Roy Stevenson (Physics) who let the door slam in her face three times for her to be sure it really was intentional and Penelope Halifax (Biology, Head of Sixth) who ignores Shirley's (dwindling) attempts at greeting in the school corridors where Penelope sweeps imperiously past her like a Dowager Grand Duchess from Imperial Russia passing a lowly peasant Penelope is the only woman to speak up at staff meetings where everyone sits in a large circle in the assembly hall that doubles as a gym and canteen, and smells of fresh sweat and stale cabbage whose superior voice slices through the booming alpha-male teachers who like to bat balls at each other across the circular court with the ferocity of tennis professionals and when Shirley and the other women try to interject, their less assertive voices struggle to be heard, are cut off by the alphas before they've even finished making their points even Kate, who is otherwise garrulous, is shut up Shirley abhors the fact that they're all pathetically resigned to letting the men, and Penelope make decisions for the rest of them this late May afternoon after the sound of a thousand pairs of feet have stampeded out of the building and down the drive leaving the school in a post-traumatic silence Penelope addresses the issue of the school's poor exam performance, declaring that half the kids are so thick and badly behaved they should be suspended or even expelled from school everyone knows which half she means Penelope is known to give the misbehaving Pete Bennetts of this world detention, whereas the Winston Blackstocks are suspended

the first step towards expulsion she should be forcibly retired, in Shirley's opinion out with the Oldies in with the New Order the young guns her Shirley decides it's time to step up and speak out I disagree, Penelope, we mustn't write them off, she says, feeling her mouth dry up as the alpha males start to shuffle in their seats I believe in making society more equal for our kids, she ploughs on, ignoring pointed coughs telling her to get on with it or shut up our kids, she emphasizes (the possibility of shared ownership), have been told they're failures, thick, as you put it, before they've proven otherwise exams are all well and good but not everyone performs well under pressure or manifests their intelligence at a young age, it can be acquired later, you know, nurtured by us, we have to be more than teachers, we have to look after them, believe in them if we don't help them, who will Penelope? a thrilled, hushed stillness animates the room Penelope doesn't disappoint, I, for one, am not a social worker, she replies in a tone that affects great weariness at Shirley's obvious naïveté and dim-wittedness, and I really think you need more than two terms on the job before you challenge someone with fifteen years' experience to a duel someone who actually knows what she's talking about now as I was saying.