‘Sir, do you believe in free love?’
There’s a big, exciting world out there, beyond the walls of our boarding school, where people are drawing power from flowers and ‘finding themselves’ as though they’ve been lost, and we just know that in his free time Sir is one of them. There’s more to him than his beige corduroy suit and deep brown eyes that try not to twinkle (and rarely succeed) – and his love of music.
‘Sir, did anyone ever tell you that you look like Andy Fairweather-Low?’
‘Who?’ he asks and we almost riot, before realizing he’s teasing us back.
We’re all mad about Amen Corner’s lead singer, so for most of the girls this is the biggest compliment we can give Sir, but in my opinion he looks more like George Harrison. Or he did before George let his hair and beard grow long. Sir’s face is always shaved, but it has a similar sculpted look to George’s and in my opinion he has the same air of secrecy about him.
What are his secrets?
How we all want to know.
Actually, Sir is much more thrilling than a pop star, mostly because he’s here and so accessible, possible even, and because he’s willing to treat pop music as if it’s as important as any other kind. Our lessons are called music appreciation, so I guess that makes sense, although I can’t imagine our previous teacher, Mr Maugham, even considering the hit parade to be part of his lessons. Much less can I imagine him picking up a guitar, or any other instrument, to play ‘Hey Jude’ while we writhe around in time to the slow-motion beat and shake our hair loose as if we’re at a wild party, or even a ritual coming of age.
With Sir we get into deep discussions about the lyrics of pop songs and why we think one instrument has been used over another. Sometimes he breaks it all down on the piano and gets us to sing phrases that sound silly out of context and we end up laughing so hard that someone knocks on the next-door wall to tell us to pipe down.
Sir’s classes are the last period on Wednesdays for our year, and no one ever misses them, not even on the weeks it’s all about classical pieces by long-dead composers. Sir has a way of talking about music that holds us all rapt, as if we’re small children caught in the melodies of a lullaby. He even manages to bring obscure, centuries-old symphonies to life by playing snatches on the piano while telling stories about how, where and why the score was composed. He tells us about first performances in exotic-sounding places, conjuring images of the crowds and the acclaim, or sometimes the horror and the shame. He delights us with the tale of Mozart composing the overture for Don Giovanni on the morning of the opera’s premiere while he had a terrible hangover.
‘Have you ever had a hangover, Sir?’ Mandy Gibbons asks him cheekily.
Sir gives her a look that’s both playful and mock scary and everyone laughs.
I remember us being electrified by the tale of John Rutter fancying John Tavener’s girlfriend when they were at school together, and we wanted to know how things had worked out.
‘Did they fight?’ someone asks.
‘Which one did she prefer?’
‘What was her name?’
‘I’ve never even heard of them.’
‘Have you ever fancied someone’s girlfriend, Sir?’
He never answers those sorts of questions; he just carries on as if they haven’t been asked. I guess he thinks we’re all pretty childish and stupid, and of course we are, but we’re old enough to have sexually charged crushes that’s for sure. I wonder if they’re even more intense at fifteen, given their newness and ripe hormonal appassionatos and attaccas. They could easily run out of control with lots of girls and considering the times we’re living in – I’ve already mentioned free love and most of us are dying to be a part of it. I’m sure we would be if we weren’t locked up in this school during the week. We are on the periphery of an explosion of newness – a revolution some are calling it, an emancipation say others – and though we don’t really understand it we still vibrate with the excitement of it.
I will readily confess to the frissons of lust I feel going into Sir’s class minus my bra sometimes. He doesn’t know, obviously, no one does, but later, as everyone around me in the dorm is falling asleep I imagine how it might have been if he had known. It makes me breathless and hot and excited to go even further the next time, although I never do.
I’m still a virgin. I haven’t even kissed a boy properly, much less let one put his hand up my skirt or inside my bra. Tricia Hill, whose bed is next to mine, claims she did things with her cousin’s friend during a weekend home visit, and Mandy Gibbons, who’s the most rebellious of our group, came back after one weekend swearing she’d gone all the way with her new boyfriend. Her eyes were glittering so brightly and her cheeks were so flushed that it was easy to believe she really had allowed that first barrier of resistance to be breached. And by someone who was virtually a stranger! How courageous and erotic that made it seem.
‘Did it hurt?’ we all want to know.
She shrugs as if she’s a grown-up now, and we are mere tadpoles in the pond of life. ‘Only a bit,’ she admits, ‘and not for long.’
‘Did you like it?’
With a dreamy sort of smile she says, ‘It was wonderful.’ (Personally, I reckoned it had hurt, but she didn’t want to tell us. She might even have been lying, and I think she was because we’d all read parts of Lady Chatterley’s Lover by then, and I’m sure it inspired her fantasy.)
‘Did you take all your clothes off, or just some of them?’ Tricia asks.
‘Did you feel embarrassed?’
‘What happened after?’
‘What if you get pregnant?’
‘Are you going to do it again?’
We have so many questions, and we’re so stimulated by the things she tells us that it isn’t long before Sir’s name is mentioned. It always is at some point, whatever the conversation, because it’s as though everything we discuss is a prelude to get to him.
We’d all long since agreed that he’d probably had sex hundreds of times so he would be an expert at it. When we talk about this we pause, eyes closed, to imagine ourselves with him, and then we dissolve into riotous giggles when someone makes noises as though it’s really happening.
We aren’t the only ones who fancy him. Some of our younger female teachers do too, you can see it in the way they break into smiles when they spot him coming their way, or are always willing to join in any project suggested by him. Some even openly flirt with him, like Mrs Blake, the PE teacher, who sometimes joins our special Wednesday classes to show us how to dance like the Go-Jos or Pan’s People. She’s really good with the moves, whether she’s dancing to something slow like ‘Honey’ or wild like ‘Jumpin’ Jack Flash’. No one can take their eyes off her, except me, because I’m watching Sir and the way he looks at her makes me certain he’s had sex with her. I’m furious about it. She’s married and has no right to him. I will her to fall over or break wind or do something to make herself ridiculous or disgusting in his eyes. The only thing that allows me to forgive her is her praise of my dancing. She says I’m one of the best in the class, a natural, and if I carry on this way I’ll end up on Top of the Pops.