Nothing to it, really!
Having just been in hospital for a while and having come out feeling weak as a kitten and tired as a sloth. Six out of ten on the life-threatening scale, but dealt with to everybody's satisfaction. I may write about it sometime as the hospital I was sent to (Stepping Hill, Stockport) was and possibly remains centre of an investigation into the mysterious deaths of patients. Apparently one or more rogue nurses was bumping people off. Allegedly. My gut feeling is that it was down to sloppy record-keeping, people covering their arses after nicking controlled drugs, and general bad management. But I'm here and alive and my rogue pneumo and pleurises have settled down.
It's simple. You just need to fill in forms SMP (i) and SMP(ii) and then complete MATB1(b) in triplicate. The difficulties of being a young expectant mother in Ankh-Morpork.
The Guild of Assassins, Ankh-Morpork.
Johanna sat at the foot of the wall, feeling miserable and glad none of the students had witnessed her humiliating failure. Her friend Alice Band sat next to her, exuding sympathy and taking Johanna's hand in a comforting way.
"Nobody's blaming you." Alice said, in a gentle voice. "And I'm sure you'll get the hang of it again after… well, you know. It's just that your body shape is wrong right now. You can't edificeer if you're carrying excess weight, for one thing. And you need to really get up close and personal to the wall. Which you just cannot do right now. Your centre of gravity is wrong and it's continually changing."
Alice sighed.
"Igorina's right, you know. There are things pregnant women are not designed to be good at. I'm going to have to sign you off edificeering and roof-running until after your child is born. And then you'll have had a long lay-off. So I'm afraid I'm going to have to ask you to retake basic proficiency tests, just to be safe. I'll put that in the recommendations book for the protocol committee."
Johanna nodded. The Guild was creating policy concerning the whole delicate area of pregnant Assassins. It had never needed to before. Now it was trying to remedy the lack, on the fly.(1) Johanna, who had barely managed to get eight feet up the wall before losing her momentum and dropping to the crash-mats beneath, was still feeling the red-faced shame of Alice immediately calling a stop to the experiment, on safety grounds.
Johanna sighed and thanked her friend. Alice looked on, sympathetically. It's never nice to see a close colleague making a hash of a basic skill, even if the reason for it is a biologically inescapable one.
"Well, the new indoor climbing wall proved its worth." she said. Alice had been fighting for this for years, as a facility to give very basic instruction to new students without damaging any. It went no higher than forty feet and almost the whole of the floor beneath was padded with crash-matting. There was also the virtue of being able to close the gym off from curious bystanders, in order to do evaluations like this in private.
"If it helps, the same pretty much applies to Emmie. And Vinnie. Although Davinia would be relieved. She was never one for climbing. I remember her getting thirty feet up and then stopping dead. I thought she'd frozen with fear, but it turned out to be a rare sort of flowering climbing plant growing in the gaps in the mortar. Professional interest."
"Thet's the only reason she climbs things." Johanna said, remembering Davinia's Mature Student training.
"Every wall an ecology. Every stone a rockery." Alice agreed.
Johanna, subdued, went on to her next lesson. At least this was classroom based: a theory lesson in Applied Exothermic Alchemy delivered to attentive senior students, on the Black.
She led a tutorial in how common household and light industrial chemicals could be assembled as improvised explosive devices, sketching key formulae and chemical equations on the blackboard and stressing to her pupils what an upward-pointing arrow meant, should they see one in an alchemical formula. (2)
"Negative enthalpy." she said, enunciating the term clearly. "Combines with positive entropy. The greater the differential, the larger the explosion. We cen celculate the expected yield of eny given explosive thus…"
It was an introductory lesson to new students, all of whom had been carefully pre-screened for a degree of stability, responsibility, and maturity. Some over-enthusiastic potential students had been weeded out, following hard experience. As she reminded her class, you do not try this at home. In this classroom, over-confidence only tends to happen once and has a regrettable tendency to take other blameless people with it. There is to be no over-confidence in this class.
A student raised a hand. She nodded and took the question.
"Err, miss. The Alchemists' Guild has been doing this sort of thing for a long time now…."
He let it trail off with another errr… Johanna understood.
"I believe I understand your observation, Mr Lostock-Gralam." she said. "End I eppreciate your prudent concern. Yes, we are following on from work done by the Guild of Elchemists over a period of meny years. Their experiments end observations are the foundation of this elchemical discipline. Thet is where the resemblance ends. We are doing it properly. Based on scientific discipline end meticulous calculation, we are not going to immolate ourselves or blow up this laboratory. THET is the difference!"
"But we might blow up other people, miss?"
Johanna nodded.
"Carefully selected end chosen targets. Ja. Without demeging ourselves."
She smiled, registering a subtly different note in the air. All the pupils in this class had passed through various other lessons she'd taught in the Lower School, for up to six years. She knew them all by name and personality and they certainly knew her. But today, she sensed the girls in the classroom watching her with a certain speculative awe. For some of them, it was almost certainly their first direct contact with a real life pregnancy in a woman they knew well enough. Others might have seen it in a sister or an aunt or even their own mothers. But in what was largely a boarding school, you see more of your teachers than your female relatives. Watching a visibly pregnant teacher get more pregnant by the day was a thing of interest. And the girls were clever enough to realise it wasn't completely of academic interest. It could well be them one day. It paid to accumulate knowledge. The Guild School taught its pupils not to scorn learning opportunities. Johanna permitted genuine questions about her condition provided they were not out of idle curiosity or prurience. The girls needed honest answers, after all.
And the boys were diffident, shy, shuffling with slight embarrassment. She hadn't quite been able to figure that one out properly. Emmanuelle had been frank about it: young, or youngish, female teachers in a school full of adolescent boys, ma foi! "We are all objects of male desire, cherie. Take it as a compliment. It will not last for ever. But now, yesterday's object of teenage lust is becoming tomorrow's mother of a child. They are confused and do not know the appropriate reaction. It has gone past sex, at least for the moment. Also, they are cruelly aware that at some point in the last few months, somebody else got to have sexual relations with us. It reminds them we are unattainable. No fantasy survives this sort of contact with reality!"
"You mean, in their eyes, we are getting too old." Johanna said, cutting to the chase.
"They are now starting to call you ma'am." Emmanuelle said, frankly. Do not think I have not noticed, and do not think I have not seen your slightly shocked reaction to this."
Mademoiselle Antoinette de Badin-Boucher entered the staffroom, accompanied by Miss Ruth N'Kweze and Miss Jocasta Wiggs.
"And these days, we have younger competitors to rival us for their sticky night-time affections." Emmanuelle observed. "We old ladies in our thirties no longer cut the mustard, it seems."
"Sic transit Gloria" said Alice Band. Alice was aware it wasn't only the boys who could have pleasant fantasies about an attractive teacher. She pretended not to be aware of this, but felt oddly flattered.
The lady teachers took a light lunch together in a café just off Filigree Street. Johanna, Davinia and Emmanuelle had a fitting appointment in the early afternoon for maternity wear. They'd decided to go together for convenience and mutual reassurance.
The train rattled towards Ankh-Morpork on its way out of Quirm. The Quirm Flyer was an express service with very few stops. But Detective-Constable Andrew Gritchley of the Cable Street Particulars, despite or possibly because of his wounds, had decided it was imperative that he got off the train as soon as he could.
It had all gone wrong somewhere in the Neverglades, the long run through the swamp which had cost heavily to build, in terms of men, equipment and engineering skill. The trouble had occurred coming out of Bouche du Quire – Quiremouth – and on the long humid run to Skankydoodle, which marked the point where Quirmian speakers lessened in numbers and Morporkian began to take over as dominant language. Attached to the Railway Police, Gritchley knew that the blocked railway line which had brought the express to a shuddering halt, the one which had taken twenty men to clear, had been no accident. It had also been on one of the long straight lengths and was visible from a long way away, as if whoever had put it there had wanted the train to stop in good time and remain intact. Fearing some sort of sentience had emerged in the swamp zombies and one had emerged who could think ahead and make a plan, a call had gone out for able-bodied and preferably armed men to supplement the railway employees. No zombies had emerged from the jungle. But four men had got on from the back, whilst the working party was occupied some way ahead of the train in clearing the line of fallen trees and debris. Then had systematically robbed two carriages of passengers of lightweight valuables such as banknotes and jewellery. By the time the railway police detachment had realised a robbery was in progress, they'd taken the train over, not without bloodshed, and forced the footplate staff to carry on for the city.
Wounded and disregarded in the brief fight, Gritchley had realised the two-man uniformed police detachment had been killed and he was the only officer left aboard. He also realised he was at the mercy of stone killers who would slaughter without blinking. The guard and goblins in the guards van were, he feared, all dead. They'd got in that way. And the train staff had then got in their way.
As the train slowed in the approach to the points and signal box at Dimmuck Junction, Gritchley realised he was only ever going to get one shot at this. He shakily got to his knees and opened the carriage door with his undamaged arm. Then, as the big shaven-headed thug shouted and raised a crossbow, he threw himself out, bouncing and rolling down the embankment, trying to manage the searing pain, a crossbow bolt missing him by inches…
Above him, the train rolled on towards Sproutington and then New Ankh, perhaps thirty minutes away.
A surprised cabbage farmer in the field saw the man fall from the train. He ran to help. Gritchley grinned through his agony, felt fresh blood flowing, and hoped there was a doctor nearby. Or better, an Igor. Mr Vimes needed to know about this.
Joyce Tanner busied herself with tape measure and notebook. She was one of the newest intake of Mature Students at the Guild who had successfully graduated as Assassins. She had gone on to teach at the Guild School, in the Arts and Crafts department.
"It's a simple problem to state." she said. "You require weapons belts and equipment pouches to wear that are stable and comfortable. That don't shift, stretch, constrict and where the load they bear doesn't unduly move around of its own accord. For me, interesting professional challenge!"
Joyce taught Leatherworking and Armour Accessories. The Guild considered this to be one useful way to meet the Secretariat of Education's report on the School, which had criticised it for its deficiency in providing suitable Handicrafts and Craft Pursuits. From the age of thirteen she had worked, first in tanning, and then on the production lines for Burleigh and Stronginthearm, producing bespoke sword belts, quivers, scabbards, weapons cases, helmet linings, boiled leather front-and-backs, jacks, jocks, pouches, loops, straps, fastenings and all those tricky little bits without which armour may not fasten and weapons will not function. By the age of twenty-five she had become a Master Armourer in her speciality and practically ran the leatherworking sheds.
And then there had been the business with the Unlicenced Thieves, during which she had used several sorts of leatherworkers' tools to telling effect, demonstrating that human skin, from a specialised point of view, is just another form of leather to be worked.
The Guild of Assassins had made her the standard offer concerning a career change, and she was here now, teaching young Assassins to craft those essential items like their own bespoke scabbards for sword and dagger. She had found the teaching to be rewarding, although not as much so as a couple of professional contracts that had paid her, in one or two goes, the equivalent of fifteen years' salary at Burleigh's. Joyce had let her old life go, not without regret, and had embraced a change in direction.
The three visibly pregnant women stood expectantly and allowed themselves to be measured by Joyce and students on the Leatherworking craft module. They were part of another teacher's lesson, after all, and professional courtesy dictated they did as requested. They watched with quiet interest as Joyce directed her students to start preparing parchment templates from their measurements, so as to have guides for cutting and preparing the leather.
The students here were the sort of practical minds who appreciated the hands-on tuition they were getting in leatherworking. They also knew Miss Tanner believed a student should know leather in all its stages. Nobody wanted to be sent on Work Experience down at the abbatoir harvesting, and then cleaning, raw hides. The Tanning module that followed next was unspeakable, and they all knew Miss Tanner used it as an appropriate reward for cheek, bad work needing remedial teaching, or over-confidence. The ingrained smell Miss Tanner carried with her, that people very carefully refrained from remarking on out of good manners because she couldn't help it, was testimony to a few years spent working in the tanning yards. (3)
"Since your last visit, I've had everyone working on the prototypes." Joyce said. "I've got three which are pretty much ready for wear now. I'd just like to fit them to you and make adjustments for your individual shapes. So we can move on from off-the-peg to bespoke."
She nodded to a senior student, who uncovered three tailors' dummies.
"Got them from the maternity wear department at Horrids." she said. "It's nice to have an unlimited budget for this sort of thing. Miss Sanderson-Reeves persuaded the Dark Council that the Guild should foot all the research and development costs, as part of the ongoing protocol thing."
"I'm grateful." Davinia Bellamy said. She was by far the most advanced of the three. Her body, Johanna observed, seemed designed for pregnancy. Wide hips and a broader frame. A larger bump.
"There's never been such a thing as a pregnant Assassin before." Joyce remarked. "The Guild wants to explore all the angles and find out everything it can. So you're the lab-rats, so to speak. And from my point of view this is a professional challenge. I know in the old days there were such things as barbarian warriors who got pregnant. And Thieves. But there isn't much information on how they got round the sword-belt thing. We're having to work it out from scratch, and make intelligent assumptions."
"Or chain-mail." Emmanuelle observed. Joyce gave her an amused look.
"Oh, chain-mail is easy." she said, dismissively. "You just go to the Dwarfs, fork out a lot of money, and they let it out in front and add a lot more links. Plate-armour and breastplates, not so. Completely redesigned breastplate, a brand-new and very much larger fauld, and some seriously expanding tasses. You know. All the front-body stuff. But that's just steel. I can do steel, up to a point, but it's not as alive as leather. Steel is a made thing. Leather is a living thing. Now let me show you. Doctor Bellamy, just raise your arms while I demonstrate?"
Joyce helped Davinia fit one of the new sort of swordbelts.
"The front band is shaped and stiffened." she explained. "It's more than a belt here. But not quite a rigid harness, as it still has to move with you. Equipment pouches slip over the belt via loops secured behind. You can have as few or as many as you like, various sizes. Frogging here and here to secure scabbards. The front band of the belt is deliberately curved so it follows the line of the ribcage. The idea is that it curves up and over the bulge and doesn't constrict. Secures with a simple twist belt. Male half through slot in female. Twist and it locks. Is that comfortable, Davinia? The design works in stretch panels here and here. There's also a cross-shoulder Sam Browne for extra security. As usual, it can carry more pouches. As I say, this is all a bit Mark One, so I'd like you to wear them in for a while and come back with any issues and recommendations. "
Johanna smiled happily as the new swords-and-equipment belt settled in to her. It fitted closely and snugly. She transferred over whip, machete and daggers from the old one that would now be relegated to her wardrobe, at least for a while.
Maternity clothing is tricky for an Assassin.
Vimes bent over the bed. Andrew Gritchley had been saved by a local Igor and transferred, barely alive, to the Lady Sybil. He and Carrot heard the report with grim attention.
The Quirm Flyer had arrived in New Ankh Station and created commotion and consternation. The watch detail at the station had demanded priority back-up and an All Officers shout had gone out. Carrot had taken command and set up an incident room where traumatised and robbed passengers could be interviewed and statements taken. A relay of ambulances had conveyed wounded people to the Lady Sybil and, with grim necessity, bodies to the morgue. The Watchmen present had stopped and saluted two dead colleagues carried out on covered stretchers. Lord Harry King turned up and had openly wept at hearing of the dead guard. Adora Belle Dearheart had smoked a cigarette in furious meaningful silence as she heard about six dead goblins.
"All six goblins travelling with the train." Vimes had said.
"It's as if the attackers really hated goblins, sir. I don't think they showed much fight." Carrot said. "Cold-blooded killing."
"They weren't aboard when the train arrived in New Ankh." Vimes remarked. "Nor was Gritchley. He's missing."
"Passenger reports indicate one man managed to throw himself out of the train while it was moving slowly outside Dimmuck." Carrot said. "The perpetrators ran to the door and started shooting at him."
"Clacks Dimmuck." Vimes said. "Get people out there to look. Priority."
"Already done, sir. Indications are that the people we're looking for skipped the train somewhere around Effing on the line towards Sproutingham."
"Well, you wouldn't expect them to stick around."
A thought struck Vimes.
"They got on in the Neverglades, having forced the train to stop. They harvest two or three thousands' worth of cash and valuables on the train. I'm wondering if this has to do with the prison escape. If I were stranded in that bloody swamp, pursued by bloody zombies and whoever the Quirmians had tracking me down, and knew a regular train ran through it, what would I do? Hijack the train. Get off it somewhere remote, but not too remote. In between, I steal enough to pay my way in Ankh-Morpork for a few months. And Effing is near enough to the City. Get the files and iconographs on those bloody Howondalandians who escaped from the Island, would you?"
And several hours later, Gritchley had been found. Vimes and Carrot had got to Dimmuck as quickly as they could. Gritchley was in a local home, tended by an Igor, one of those who passed through outlying villages plying an itinerant trade. Igors were welcomed in railway towns as even on the best-run rail lines, you never knew when you needed one. Accidents to railwaymen could be severe and require prompt care. And new limbs. The local stationmaster had taken the policeman into his home and provided a bedspace and support facilities.
They heard his report and asked careful questions. They showed Grinchley the iconographs. He confirmed those were the men and two of them had definitely had Rimwards Howondalandian accents.
"Once heard, never forgotten." Vimes said. "And we know they were definitely on the train when you, er, left it."
He stood up.
"Look, we'll get you back to the City when Igor thinks you're fit to travel." he said. "For now, we'll get a guard on this house, just in case. You try and sleep now. And – bloody well done!"
Vimes slipped the stationmaster thirty dollars for his expenses in housing the wounded Watchman.
"It's not so much that, sir." The stationmaster said. "But thank you. It's an attack on the trains!" He sounded outraged. "Tell me you'll get these men, sir?" he almost pleaded.
"As soon as we can." Vimes reassured him. "We have a pretty good idea of why they want to get to the city. We're watching certain places. We'll get them. Sooner or later."
Vimes now had a personal reason to get them. Two dead Railway Watchmen. And he had a list of potential targets in the city. I'll step up the watch on Johanna, he decided. But there are also the other potential targets.
He decided to call a case conference when he was back. It wouldn't hurt to call in the Assassins. And the Rimwards Howondalandian authorities. The Ambassador was a target too. And the wanted men were their bloody nationals. Compare notes. See who had bits of useful information. So long as the Assassins and the Howondalandians realised this was his bust. Two dead Watchmen screamed out for that.
At the Tanty Prison, Peter Bellamy was interviewing Probationary Officer Edward Cullen. He'd had reservations about hiring Cullen. But he didn't see how the…man… could be denied a try-out, as he was fit, of good character, and sincerely wanted to work in "corrective institutions".(4) To have refused him would have been discrimination.
So Cullen had been enrolled and put through basic training. A tenet of prison officering was never, ever, to let the cons test your weaknesses and play on them. But straight away, they'd identified one in Cullen. And milked it. To Peter Bellamy, it stopped here.
"Let's recap, shall we. You were assigned to perform cell searches for suspected contraband. A standard duty. But. And let me stress nobody's blaming you. In the circumstances it's pretty much inevitable. And I'm aware you can't help it."
Peter looked at the eager, alert seeming-young officer with sympathy.
"The moment they realised you're a vampire. The cons realised that if they refused you permission to go into their cells, you could not cross the threshold. That is an age-old limiting factor on vampires, I understand. So while you were standing outside unable to go in, they could hide the contraband, throw it out of the window to an associate in the exercise yard, or otherwise delay other officers arriving to perfume the cell search."
Cullen nodded, ruefully.
Peter Bellamy shook his head, sadly.
"Look. You're capable in other ways and I really don't want to lose you. So what I'm proposing is that while we get this sorted out – Mr Morecombe the lawyer, being a vampire, is graciously looking for loopholes we can use to get round this little difficulty – you go on night shifts. Fly security patrols around the rooftops and perimeter. I'm sorry because I know that's boring work, but right now it's the best I can offer… what is it, Mr Anderson?"
The junior prison officer, who'd knocked and entered, coughed and said
"Excuse me, Mr Bellamy. Got a message that Mrs Bellamy was in a street incident. Some unlicenced Thieves tried their luck with her. New in town, apparently."
Peter Bellamy exhaled wearily.
"How many casualties, Mr Anderson?"
"Three, sir, but no deaths. I guess we'll be seeing them here soon after the next Assizes. And Doctor Smith-Rhodes was involved, too."
"Definitely new in town, then." Bellamy agreed. He briefly wondered how new or desperate somebody would have to be to try to mug two Assassins. Maybe they thought pregnant women would be especially vulnerable, or something. Not those two.
"She sends her love, tells you not to worry, and she'll see you at home later, sir."
"New in town, are you?" Davinia Bellamy said, pleasantly. She didn't seem alarmed at all at being confronted by three knife-and-club wielding thieves.
"We're not Guild members". The spokes-thief said. He brandished his knife. Two women, both visibly sprogged with bulges in front. Easy marks. "And we don't mind cutting you. So give."
The mumsy blonde with the specs turned to the younger red-haired one.
"Shall we give them something, Johanna?" she asked, in the same unconcerned voice.
Johanna grinned. Pregnancy was making her cranky.(5) She needed some exercise.
Several hundred yards away, undercover Particular Sergeant Jim Gerbilac, assigned to discreetly follow and observe Johanna, was in a dilemma as to whether or not to break cover. He discreetly identified himself to street Sergeant Fred Colon, who was also watching.
"Oh, that one's easy, Jim!" Fred said. He turned to his probationary lance-constable street partner for the day.
"The two ladies is Assassins." Fred said, explaining. "But them thieves ain't worked that out. Must be new faces in town. We watch, right, and when they've dealt with the situation, we proceeds forward and if at all possible, we seek to deter Mrs Stibbons(6) from actually killing anybody. Then we nick the unconscious Thieves and calls for a hurry-up wagon. No need for you to show a badge, Jim." Colon added, in a discreet whisper.
Gerbilac nodded and moved away.
And then the situation resolved itself in an unexpected manner.
Three young men, in uniform denoting them as being senior Assassins' School pupils on the black, emerged from a coffee shop on Treacle Mine Road. They paused and took in the situation for just long enough.
Then all three rushed the thieves.
The largest and burliest of the three roared with rage and hammered the luckless spokesthief up against a wall. His knife fell with a clang. The other two were soon in a private world of pain all of their own.
Johanna and Davinia looked at each other and stood back.
"Well, your lessons in streetfighting certainly work." Davinia said.
Johanna nodded. She'd regretfully had to suspend her extra-curricular class in Unorthodox Fighting Skills. She missed this. Then she said
"Mr Drooley?" in as commanding a voice as she could muster.
Wayne Drooley, student assassin, let his mark slump.
"Yes, miss?" Drooley said, politely.
"Do not think I'm not grateful for this. But thet man's taken enough of a bettering. You do not wish to inhume him. That causes problems. I see the Watch is nearby. Let them take over."
Johanna moved forwards and shook hands with her three pupils.
Drooley reddened slightly.
"I thenk you for your essistance." she said. Davinia was also grateful.
Wayne Drooley shuffled awkwardly. In a pupil that size and shape, it was endearing.
"I saw them going for you, miss. And I thought. In your state that's not right. You're one of the best, miss. Always been good to me. You play fair. And I sort of thought. She's OK, miss Smith-Rhodes. Done me favours. So we did you one back. And we felt… sort of protective, miss. You being as you are and all. Errr…"
"I understend. Now those Watchmen are coming this way. It would not do for you to be here when they arrive. I should leave. I will deal with them. End thenk you egain."
The students left. Fred Colon took this as a signal to speed up.
"That's a turn-up." Davinia said, reflectively. "The boys start out being frightened of us. Get pregnant, it suddenly brings out the best in them. Even young Wayne."
"Protective of us." Johanna said, thoughtfully. "Now thet's a new one!" (7)
"Let's talk to the Watch." Davinia said, practically. They completely missed Jim Gerbilac, who carried on covertly observing.
1 Although the Dark Council called it evolving policy on this matter, based on the lessons of practical experiment, hard experience and close observation, so as to guide the Guild appropriately in the future. (trans: "We didn't have policy on this before, as frankly we all hoped it would never happen. Despite the well-known and attested tendency of the human race to pair-bond and procreate, the history of the Guild, up till possibly eleven or twelve years ago, was an almost exclusively male one. Pregnancy was seen as a private issue for the wives and extended families of Assassins and not for the Gentlemen themselves, who could be relied upon to make appropriate and suitably private arrangements in advance of the happy event and not involve the Guild directly. Now women have, most deservedly, become full members of the Guild family, we realise the time is now appropriate to consider this matter in more detail.") In other words, ten out of thirteen members of the Dark Council had been caught out and needed to make up some sort of protocol pretty much on the fly. The other three, who'd seen it coming, were fuming with frustration and making sure the new policies and protocols would be practical, sensible and workable.
2 I could provide interesting examples, but Rule of Cautious Editing Judgement applies here. Suffice to say that an upward-pointing arrow, at least when I was at school, means "a large amount of thermal energy will be given off by this reaction. We're really not joking here. The word "Ka-BOOM!" applies."
3 Joyce Tanner reeked. Of perfumed soap, anti-perspirants, bath essences, lavender oil, and so forth. Her personal hygiene was unimpeachable. The problem was, she over-compensated for the odours of the tanning yard and even now tended to be incredibly careful in her personal regimen. People meeting her for the first time found their noses shut down in self-defence. But when you considered the alternative and reflected on the substances tanners worked with, you didn't complain about the lavender. Students sent by her for a day of Work Experience in the tanning yard could similarly be identified by their smell for some weeks afterwards. Johanna, who kept Acerian skunks at the Zoo, had gone through a similar uncomfortable fortnight or so after inadvertently being sprayed. She sympathised. And used Skunks as a weapon against student bad behaviour. Davinia Bellamy cultivated Durian fruit, or rather got certain students to cultivate it for her, for the same reasons.
4 "Prisons". Bellamy had corrected him. He didn't want that sort of language in his nick, thank you very much. There were limits.
5 "cranky". Spell it differently and it's a Dutch/Afrikaans word for "sick" or "ill" and has a colloquial meaning of "ill-tempered, as with a headache".
6 Colon was an old-fashioned sort of man who firmly believed a married woman should always take her husband's name. Because it was traditional, right, and a mark of the institution of holy wedlock.
7 I can confirm this. At age eleven we had a slightly scary but attractive younger woman teaching us French. For the next few years she managed our French classes with a very firm hand. When we were fifteen, she was visibly pregnant. She detailed myself and another guy to help her sort out books for the class and took us to a store cupboard. On the way she talked to us like we were adults, perfectly normally, as if we were people she knew outside school. This was vanishingly rare in my school. And Simon and I realised we now towered over her. She looked small, fragile and very, very, pregnant. And we both realised. We somehow, absurdly, felt protective of her. So I wrote a little of this into the enfante terrible Wayne Drooley. Tribute, really.