What Was She Thinking?

Notes on a ScandalBy Zoe Heller

Blackstone Audiobooks

Copyright © 2006 Zoe Heller
All right reserved.
ISBN: 9780786148059

Chapter One

The first time I ever saw Sheba was on a Monday morning,early in the winter term of 1996. I was standing in the St.George's car park, getting books out of the back of my car, whenshe came through the gates on a bicycle-an old-fashioned,butcher-boy model with a basket in the front. Her hair wasarranged in one of those artfully dishevelled up-dos: a lot ofstray tendrils framing the jaw, and something like a chopstickpiercing a rough bun at the back. It was the sort of hairstylethat film actresses wear when they're playing sexy lady doctors.I can't recall exactly what she had on. Sheba's outfits tend to bevery complicated-lots of floaty layers. I know she was wearingpurple shoes. And there was definitely a long skirt involved,because I remember thinking that it was in imminent danger ofbecoming entangled in her spokes. When she dismounted-witha lithe, rather irritating little skip-I saw that the skirtwas made of some diaphanous material. Fey was the word thatswam into my mind. Fey person, I thought. Then I locked mycar and walked away.

My formal introduction to Sheba took place later the sameday when Ted Mawson, the deputy head, brought her into thestaff room at afternoon break for a "meet and greet." Afternoonbreak is not a good time to meet schoolteachers. If you were toplot a graph of a teacher's spirits throughout the school day,afternoon break would be represented by the lowest valley. Theair in the staff room has a trapped, stagnant quality. The chirpyclaptrap of the early morning has died away, and those staffmembers who are not milling about, checking their timetablesand so on, sprawl in lugubrious silence. (To be fair, the sprawlingis as much a tribute to the shoddy construction of the staffroom's three elderly foam sofas as an expression of the teachers'low morale.) Some of the teachers stare, slack-shouldered, intospace. Some of them read-the arts and media pages of the liberalnewspapers mainly, or paperback editions of the lower sortof fiction-the draw being not so much the content as theshield against having to converse with their colleagues. A greatmany chocolate bars and instant noodles in plastic pots are consumed.

On the day of Sheba's arrival, the staff room was slightlymore crowded than usual, owing to the heating being on theblink in Old Hall. (In addition to its three modern structures-theGym, the Arts Centre, and the Science Block-the St.George's site includes two rather decrepit redbrick buildings,Old Hall and Middle Hall, which date back to the school'soriginal, Victorian incarnation as an orphanage.) That afternoon,several teachers who might otherwise have remainedskulking in their Old Hall classrooms during break had beendriven to seek refuge in the staff room, where the radiators werestill operative. I was off in a far corner when Mawson usheredSheba in, so I was able to watch their slow progress around theroom for several minutes before having to mould my face intothe appropriate smile.

Sheba's hair had become more chaotic since the morning.The loose tendrils had graduated to hanks and, where it wasmeant to be smooth and pulled back, tiny, fuzzy sprigs hadreared up, creating a sort of corona around her scalp. She was avery thin woman, I saw now. As she bent to shake the hands ofseated staff members, her body seemed to fold in half at thewaist like a piece of paper. "Our new pottery teacher!" Mr.Mawson was bellowing with his customary chilling good spirits,as he and Sheba loomed over Antonia Robinson, one of ourEng. lit women. Sheba smiled and patted shyly at her hair.

Pottery. I repeated the word quietly to myself. It was too perfect:I pictured her, the dreamy maiden poised at her wheel,massaging tastefully mottled milk jugs into being.

She was gesturing at the windows. "Why are all the curtainsdrawn?" I heard her ask. Ted Mawson rubbed his hands, nervously.

"Oh," Antonia said, "so the kids can't look in at us and makefaces."

Bill Rumer, the head of chemistry, who was sitting next toAntonia on one of the foam sofas, snorted loudly at this. "Actually,Antonia," he said, "it's so we can't look out at them. So theycan smash each other up-do their raping and pillaging-andwe're not required to intervene."

Antonia laughed and made a scandalised face.

A lot of teachers at St. George's go in for this sort of posturingcynicism about the pupils, but Bill is the chief offender. Heis a rather ghastly character, I'm afraid-the sort of man who isalways sitting with his legs aggressively akimbo, offering aclearer silhouette of his untidy crotch than is strictly decent.One of the more insufferable things about him is that heimagines himself tremendously naughty and shocking-a delusionin which women like Antonia are all too eager to conspire.

"Oh, Bill," Antonia said now, pressing her skirt against herthighs.

"Don't worry," Bill said to Sheba, "you'll get used to thegloom." He smiled at her magnanimously-the grandee allowingher into the little enclosure of his bonhomie. Then, as hiseyes swept over her, I saw his smile waver for a moment.

Women observing other women tend to be engrossed by thedetails-the bodily minutiae, the clothing particulars. We getso caught up in the lone dimple, the excessive ears, the missingbutton, that we often lag behind men in organising the individualfeatures into an overall impression. I mention this byway of explaining why it was only now, as I watched Bill, thatthe fact of Sheba's beauty occurred to me. Of course, I thought.She's very good looking. Sheba, who had been smiling fixedlythroughout Bill and Antonia's droll exchange, made anothernervous adjustment to her hair. As she raised her long, thin armsto fuss with the chopstick hair ornament, her torso lengthenedand her chest was thrust forward slightly. She had a dancer'sbosom. Two firm little patties riding the raft of her ribs. Bill'seyes widened. Antonia's eyes narrowed.

Sheba and Mawson continued on their journey around theroom. The change that took place in the teachers' faces as theyset eyes on Sheba confirmed my appraisal of Bill's appraisal.The men beamed and ogled. The women shrank slightly andturned sullen. The one exception was Elaine Clifford, a St.George's alumnus who teaches lower school biology. Assumingwhat is her characteristic stance of unearned intimacy, Elainestood very close to Sheba and began to blast her with impudentchatter. They were only a few feet away from me now. After amoment, Mawson turned and beckoned to me. "Barbara!" heshouted, cutting off Elaine in midstream. "Do come and meetSheba Hart."

I stepped over and joined the group.

"Sheba is going to be teaching pottery," Mawson said. "As youknow, we've been waiting a long time to replace Mrs. Sipwitch.We feel tremendously lucky and pleased to have got her."

In response to these words, a small, precise circle of scarletappeared on each of Sheba's cheeks.

"This is Barbara Covett," Mawson went on. "She's one of ourstalwarts. If Barbara ever left us, I'm afraid St. George's wouldcollapse."

Sheba looked at me carefully. She was about thirty-five, Iestimated. (She was actually forty, about to be forty-one.) Thehand that she held out to be shaken was large and red andsomewhat coarse to the touch. "How nice to be so needed," shesaid, smiling. It was difficult to distinguish her tone, but itseemed to me that it contained a note of genuine sympathy-asif she understood how maddening it might be to be patronisedby...