Monday 7th November:

Sunday: Mathilde
The bomber is all silhouette in the gloom, a clumsy caricature of a bat-black shape, threatening in the dusk. Sometimes, looking up at the aeroplanes hanging from the ceiling and waiting for sleep to come, she’ll vocalise a whispered narrative about a stereotypical night bombing mission over the eastern territories, with her Uncle [skinhead bloke’s dad…] playing out his real-life role as a wireless operator in one of the planes, adding a personalised, intimate note to her story telling; Uncle X always performs this role quietly in the background, as if she’s reluctant to impose her own imagined experience or ersatz emotions on his much-respected, authentic [experience]. [Her own interpretation and recreation of the events cringing embarrassedly in front of the intimidating concreteness of what he really went through – and her reluctance to ask him about it to authenticate her own reading, lest she upset him or appear disrespectful in some way: that strange over-sensitivity and eggshell-treading fear of causing upset or embarrassment – of creating a scene or a fuss, or of opening the closed trunk of family emotions…(or something)].

In her imagination, a darkened landscape will be scrolling out across the bedroom floor while the slow-flying bomber, part of a broader stream of other bombers all flying their parallel but individual tracks, crabs across the sky towards its target. She’ll imagine himself as one of her uncle’s fellow crew members, projections of the archetypes she’s seen in a host of war films and which she’s internalised to such an extent that they are now unquestioned truths for her: the measured, laconic, authoritative skipper – all cool words and calm; the technically astute and competent navigator who saves the rest of the crew with his insight and wisdom; the salt of the earth working class rear gunner who saves the day by detecting an attacking night fighter and alerting the captain in the nick of time; sometimes she’ll even assume the persona of the colonial mid-upper gunner, whose highly-strung nature and inadequate courage unnerve the rest of the crew , and who usually has some kind of an emotional outburst/hysterical breakdown and has to be helped from his turret and sedated on the narrow rest bed behind the wireless operator’s position, before being treated with patronising and indulgent care and attention by the rest of the (native-born) crew. It’s in this persona that Mathilde feels most authentic – uncertain, frightened, liable to reach the end of her courage before any one else. She has days – at school especially – when she thinks that everyone is looking at her and laughing, finding her wanting in some way. On these days, she’ll be silent and withdrawn, and her eyes will be downcast. She won’t want anyone to talk to her, lest she be thrown into a state of tongue-tied confusion. And yet, at the same time, she’ll crave the friendly contact of a grown up or an older pupil, feeling that some warm words or a gentle touch on the shoulder will take away her anxiety and make her feel safe. On days like these, she wants someone to make everything all right by breaking the pattern and tedium of her suffering and securing for her a place of security, shut away from the demands of the everyday. [That liberating feeling of escaping from the routine, from duty, from the tyranny of ‘that which must be done – pre-figuring that same behaviour in her adult life…]

She remembers something similar from her days at primary school – from her very first day there, in fact. In the cloakroom, at the end of the morning playtime, with the drizzle steaming off the excited children’s woollen clothes, one of the older girls had pushed Mathilde back against the wall before grabbing hold of her pullover and bunching her fist against Mathilde’s narrow and vulnerable-feeling chest [she could feel the pressure on her individual ribs, springy and tender]. Mathilde can’t remember what the girl said or wanted, but she does remember feeling trapped, panic-stricken, deeply disappointed that this was what school turned out to be like after so much optimistic anticipation, and afraid that she might wet herself. But Miss Phillips, her class teacher, intervened, smacking the back of the older girl’s pale, bare legs and sending her to the head mistress’s office. Then she took Mathilde to the medical room and sat her down on the wire-sprung camp bed until she had stopped crying, and dried her tears.

When she was standing up, Miss Phillips seemed immensely tall and powerful to Mathilde – particularly in the calf-length skirts that were so fashionable in those days. But, when she sat down next to her on the camp bed and put her arm around her shoulders, she felt warm and safe and loved, and made her start crying again. That was when she fell half in love with Miss Phillips, who was tall and thin, with a pinched face, a large nose, and long dark hair. Her glasses were typical of the 197os: over-large, thick-rimmed black plastic – and scarcely flattering: they made Miss Phillips look kind of owlish.

It turned out that Miss Phillips wasn’t really tough enough for the classroom, and there came a day when the naughtiest boys’ behaviour drove her to an uncontrolled outburst of tearful shouting, at the end of which she ran out of the classroom. There was silence in the classroom for a few seconds, during which Mathilde could hear her heart beating in the shocked stillness. Then the naughty boys – and quite a few of the other children – started laughing and whooping.

Mathilde felt sorry for Miss Phillips, but not sorry enough that she would say anything to criticise the naughtiest boys, or draw attention to her own ‘soft’ sensitivity. She knew already that she had to keep that weakness hidden away: she’d seen other boys and girls picked on and bullied for their openness and weakness. She knew, already, how to stay on the fringes, how to laugh at the right moments when the tough girls were speaking, how to blend into the background with her pliability and inoffensiveness. How to look on with wide eyes while other people made the running and took the risks. How to be safe, anonymous and middling.

(c. 1040 words - bit of a token effort today as my eyes have been a bit wonky again, and I don't really want to be looking at a screen...)