Diary of an Assistant Mistress by Teri Power Page A

animals?"
    He was in no mood. He made a quarter-hearted pass at me and I 'made an excuse and left'.
    Saturday 7th May
    James spent an interesting day, and George and Edie an interesting dinner party, listening to me moaning about Information Technology. George does at least possess a computer (rather more expensive than mine, actually) but that is the extent of their involvement.
    I drank rather heavily of the grape.
    Sunday 8th May
    Stalinism is dead, reformism is dead, the metaphor is dead. To hell with Info Tech. I will teach English and like it.
    Like the Poll Tax, my course will linger after its death sentence for two years. A winding-down course is the most difficult to get capitation for of course. If I am going to get any money I will have to do so soon, before they can use the excuse that the course will not be running for much longer and while the hierarchy are still as guilty as they ever get over putting the knife into me.
    Monday 9th May
    This time, I approached a deputy head, Simon (I couldn't quite face Peter), and managed to extract œ100 for Info Tech text books from him. There must be a fair amount of guilt among the hierarchy but I think he regards this as payment in full.
    Oz was off work with a diplomatic hangover. I had to cover one of his classes. I must say if I had to teach that shower every week I would have diplomatic something every Monday.
    There are only twenty of them and they are quite amiable so long as I don't want them to work. They will talk about girlfriends and boyfriends and whether Jackie was really 'doing it' in the cinema: "Fingering isn't doing it, is it, Miss Power?" but they looked in blank astonishment at the equally blank pieces of paper in front of them and handled the pen (they had about one between them) as if unsure of its purpose.
    Perhaps they thought it was a device for 'fingering' in cinemas without the management noticing.
    Tuesday 10th May
    Oz back, full of apologies as ever. He confided that his domestic situation had deteriorated and he had stayed drunk over the weekend in an effort to improve it. The effort seemed to have had only limited success.
    Apart from trying to take some of the pressure off him at work, there is very little we can do to help. It did strike me that if Clair were to say anything at all to Mrs Oz it could only do harm:
    a) "I am not having an affair with your husband." Truthful but fraught with dangers such as rekindling suspicion.
    b) "It's over between Oz and me."
    "Same here."
    c) "What nice curtains."
    "You patronise me at your peril."
    Wednesday 11th May
    Clair stopped me after school with an excited whisper. I assumed that she had more news on the Oz saga but no. It seems that our French assistant had a phone call from a man ostensibly asking for her head. She was short of money and thought it would be a good idea to give some private French lessons. To this end she had put an advertisement in a newsagents' window offering "French lessons by fully qualified mistress."
    She told Clair that a strange man had called about the advert and "asked if I would give him my head." Clair explained matters to her and she has now withdrawn the newsagents' card.
    Thursday 12th May
    The Archimedes has returned with a bill for a hundred pounds and an apparently working disk drive. It worked for all of five minutes. Now we have to send it back to the same firm again.
    I have put the desks in my room back the way they were. They still don't fit: the room is just too small.
    Friday 13th May
    James Birch was absent this morning. His classmates all said it was because it was Friday 13th and he was superstitious. I think not. It is PE on Friday mornings and James has been superstitious about PE for as long as I have known him.
    NUT Meeting at Ruskin House. Amanda has a rather unusual way of laughing. She was telling me about a pupil called Chris Hunt and made a Spoonerism of it. Before I quite knew what was happening she had her head in my lap and a fit of the