Tenterhooks. Suzannah Dunn
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days long. Both trips take place during the same half term holiday each year, because there has never before been an overlap between biology and English. Mr Bennett’s view was that the field trip was necessary for our biology, but that Stratford was an optional extra for English. Which is not quite what our English teachers said but – being English teachers – they were too liberal to cause a fuss. So then Rachel and I had to come up with another hitch.
We decided that we could not miss any of The Crucible rehearsals, two of which were scheduled for this week. This was too much for Mr Bennett, who sent us to Mr Dene, the Headmaster. Mr Dene said that all we had to do in our roles was scream. We informed him that there was much more to our roles than simple screams – that we had to scream at the correct moments and with the correct intensity. In our defence we called one of the English teachers, who was directing the play, and she did her best, but Mr Dene – being Mr Dene – refused to listen to her.
So then Rachel marched into his office and did not stop until she was in the middle, where she hooked her hair behind her ears to show that she meant business and said to him, ‘Look,’ I’ll be straight with you, ‘we just don’t want to go, okay?’
This okay was her mistake, because from behind his desk he bellowed, ‘No, it is not okay,’ and went on, ‘if you refuse to go on this field trip, then you will be unprepared for your exams and I will refuse to allow you to take them.’
I stepped forward from the doorway to join Rachel, and explained calmly, ‘Mr Dene, marine biology is one of our options; in the exam, we have to write essays on four of six options. So, we can easily avoid marine biology.’ I had done my homework.
But my mistake was to have mentioned options, and ease. Why did I do this? I know very well that Mr Dene’s whole life is about the destruction of our options and ease. I think that I may even have smiled, slightly, which, if I did, was even more stupid of me.
Mr Dene addressed Rachel, which people usually do: parents and teachers, they all direct their arguments to Rachel, often looking at the four earrings that she has in both ears, as if this justifies their shouting, as if the earrings are blocking her ears. ‘You will go,’ he yelled, leaning over his desk, ‘because I say so.’
Rachel muttered, ‘Wonderful philosophy of education,’ but stepped backwards to the door. I could not believe that she was giving in so readily. But I followed her, I had to follow her; if I had not followed, I would have been left behind. At the door, though, she turned our defeat into a threat: ‘We’ll go,’ she told him, and cocked a cold smile onto her face, ‘but, believe me, we don’t have to like it.’
And so here we are, not liking it: I did not choose biology so that I could study whelks; I chose biology because I was interested in people. I wanted to follow the intense and precise activities beneath our skin. I love the logic of biology: in bodies, everything has a time and place. This is why biology is so easy to learn, for all the intricacies. Because I only have to think, as long as I think very carefully: what is needed, here, and what happens next, what has to happen next? Unlike those other favourite subjects of mine, literature and history, which are made of people’s schemes, mistakes, runnings amok. But the logic of bodies is different from the meaningless logic of maths or of the other school sciences, chemistry and physics. Biology makes sense: I can hold the bits in my hands, if I want, if I need, and they are the means to an end, an end which is real, which is life. In the chemistry labs, the plastic models of molecules look like starships given away in packets of breakfast cereal. And physics: I remember one lesson, on inertia, and I suppose that inertia is real in a sense, but not really real; physics was a lot of ticker tape.
But my biology has to be human; or, at a push, mammalian, and then only because of the similarity of their little bodies to ours, their skulls and spines. I have no interest in animals which drag shells or lay eggs, and I have even less interest in plants, those stacks of starchy cells which soak up whatever is dropped on them. There are whole textbooks that I never open: The Plant World, The World of Invertebrates. Unfortunately, marine biology is made from the very worst of both worlds, animal and plant: animals that are no more than plants, and plants that are more like animals. All of them are bits of slime that stick to and hide in rocks.
Three days ago, I despaired and took matters into my own hands: I went to the doctor and lied that I was ill. She asked questions about my appetite, kneaded my neck with her fingertips, pressed her cold stethoscope to my bared chest, found nothing and diagnosed a virus.
I explained, ‘But I’m going to a peninsula for a biology field trip in three days’ time.’
She reassured me, ‘Oh, I’m sure you’ll be fine.’
I hurried, ‘But what if I’m not?’
She frowned, smiled, told me to come back if I did not improve. So, I did, yesterday, to tell her that I was worse. She pulled down my lower eyelids, looked into my mouth, frowned into my face and asked me, ‘Do you have anything on your mind, at the moment?’
‘Yes, the biology field trip.’
She smiled. ‘Fresh air and exercise: you’ll be fine.’
‘But what if I’m not?’ I urged.
She soothed, ‘Don’t worry.’
We seemed to be at cross purposes.
Then she laughed, genuinely happily. ‘You’ll survive.’
Survival: I love the perfection of human biology but also, and perhaps more so, the flaws; I love the possibility of flaws, which cannot exist in the other sciences where everything either is or is not. I love the ways that bodies can overcome their problems. I love the mysteries, too, the unmapped depths of bodies. There is a brain injury that causes people to try to have sex with anyone or anything. Which means that there is a biological basis for inhibition, that even self-control is biological.
We have survived the first full day of field work. The schedule pinned to our dormitory door tells us that, now, having had our Dinner, we are Free until Lights Out at eleven o’clock. This seems expertly cruel: we are free, but there is nothing to do and nowhere to go. Before we came here, Mr Stanford told us that he would drive us to local pubs, and we decided that an evening with him was better than nothing. But arriving here yesterday, parking in the courtyard, in the darkness, he hit something and tore off the back bumper. So now the minibus is awaiting the attentions of the local garage man, who is due sometime much later in the week. When we whined to Mr Stanford, this evening, over dinner, that we had nothing to do, he laughed and suggested that we take advantage of the library. This mention of the library was to flatter Jim, the Course Leader, who was sitting with him – this morning, during our Briefing (09.05, Briefing, Prefab no. 2), Jim had fantasized long and loud over the library. He had told us that the library was excellent, rare, renowned, so that people came from all over the country.
Rachel whispered in my ear, ‘Yeah, my mum is always nipping down here.’
Jim must have heard, because he looked at her earrings and stressed, ‘Marine biologists.’
He is a marine biologist, which, for some reason, seems to impress Mr Stanford. Not us, though: one day here and we have discovered that marine biologists are the lowest form of life. At lunch time, Mr Stanford owned up that he would have liked to have become a marine biologist. We think that he would like to be Jim, climbing over rocks with the wind in his hair. We think that Mr Stanford has been tampering with his hair today so that he looks like Jim. He is happy here, and has made no effort to hide this from us. He has a drinking buddy in Jim, which we know because Avril overheard Jim’s promise of a hot toddy or two tonight in my room. And, more importantly for him, he has found someone to fancy, someone called Janet who is here to research for a Ph.D. in algae. And she looks as if she is here to research for a Ph.D. in algae. Avril saw Mr Stanford turn from Jim to Janet, heard him ask her, ‘Janet? A hot toddy or two, later?’ He has plans, now; he cares even less about us, he makes no pretence, now.
When he laughed and told us to spend the evening in the library, I was only amazed that