Shoes.

Tip-tap, tippety-tap, my heels strike the wooden floor, bounce off the walls of the tall corridors and echo in my ears. (I imagine thousands of dwarves delving in the deep of Moira, each hammer stroke painstakingly working on a tiny piece of carving) such is my imagination. The familiar feel of a panic attack starts in my booming heart and the corridor starts to recede into darkness, a long tunnel with no beginning and no end. I'm rooted to the spot, unable to move. I'm hyperventilating, I know it, and stretching out a hand to steady myself I'm falling again¦

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I was eleven when I first saw the grammar school, which was to become my life for the next six years. Set on a hillside, it was an imposing building, long driveways extending to the left and right, one for the girls and one for boys. A building with four stories and myriads of windows gleaming bright in the September sunshine, it intimidated me from the start. From my cramped little junior school to this massive building with pitches for rugby and hockey in the front, to the tennis courts and acres of grounds in the back, I was stunned into immobility. Maybe my fear of wide open spaces and crowds of people began at that time, all I knew then was a terrible feeling of entering a place where I knew I would be gobbled up and spat out like the phoney I felt myself to be.

Two of my friends were starting the same day as me, but they didn't seem to share my fear, after all, it was considered a great honour to be admitted to this great school where an ordinary working-class girl could rise above her poor background. My elder sister was still at the school, four-years older than me, she was popular and doing well. I was only too aware that half of my school uniform was my sister's second-hand clothes, altered to fit my skinny frame. Only my school blazer and hat were new, along with the clumpy black shoes bought for me with a small grant. It was these shoes that started all the trouble.

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Walking down the drive on that first day I felt somewhat comforted by the presence of my friends. That didn't last long. The moment I stepped on the shiny floor that stretched as far as the eye could see, I was aware of my terrible clumpy shoes. Clutching my satchel in one hand and my slip of pink paper in the other I headed in the direction of my new class, 1a. It should have been easy to find but I was petrified by the clunk clomp of my heavy shoes. The whirlwind which consisted of pupils, old and new, soon left me far behind. In the silence of the moment I could hear myself walking like a carthorse leaving a trail of manure in its wake on the golden polished floor. I was hopelessly lost in that maze of corridors, only the echoes of those hated shoes coming at me from every side. I wanted to run home to the safe and familiar small school, where shoes wouldn't scuff every highly polished surface. My head and heart pounded, my breath cramped in my lungs and I slid into darkness.

I awoke in a place that smelt of a dentist's surgery. The school nurse was kind and handed me a plastic beaker of water to drink. I had fainted, she told me, not that unusual with pre-teen girls. Looking back I think she must have thought I was starting my period although that horror was waiting for me two years ahead. I could go home now or stay for lunch, (we were allowed free school dinners at that time) and join my new class in the afternoon.

There wasn't much choice left to me. My mother would be ashamed of me for running home and my sister would never live it down. Lunch was a nightmare, queuing up for food was something I never got used to, neither was the thought of lunch when it was called dinner at home. 'What did I eat that day?' I picked at some glutinous mess, mainly eating a bread roll.
The meals were staggered; of course, it was a smallish canteen with many pupils to feed. I never got used to wolfing my food down and often left half my meal on its plate.
In the afternoon I joined my new class. Naturally I was made unpopular from that time on.
Choosing a desk at the back of the room I thought I'd be left alone. But I'd missed the morning orientation and didn't understand I'd move on to a new classroom every time the bell rang. I was clumsy and always last to leave the room, gathering up books and paper for the next lesson.

Eventually I got used to everything, but that first year left me with an inferiority complex that lasted all through my school years. I blamed it on the shoes, those awful clodhoppers that made me so scared of the echoing corridors. In vain I pleaded for newer, lighter shoes, but there was never enough money and the school grant only stretched to practical clothing and footwear. I became nervous of the slightest thing. Once I fainted in assembly, the noise of hundreds of girls trapping me into claustrophobia. Another time I fainted again when I was late for the next class, (someone with a warped sense of humour thought it would be fun to chuck my satchel into the quadrangle). I couldn't get to the next class without retrieving my satchel and the thought of running down the corridors filled me with an un-natural dread.

I both loved and hated the hallways. Those immaculate floors were never meant to be scuffed and scratched, but lovingly buffed to a sheen that seemed to be the epitome of all that was gracious and proud. Never had I seen a building so rich in texture and yet so sparse. There were rugs in the headmistress's office and lino in the canteen, but the rest of the school was panelled in wood. Even the wooden panels in the great hall that bore the names of pupils with their achievements etched out in gold lettering, a legacy dating back to the early 1900's.
My name would never adorn those walls, not with my big feet and those awful shoes. I dragged them around like a dead weight, even in the summer term when Clarke's best sandals were allowed. Always wearing my sister's leavings, long worn out and patched when they came to me.

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Someone is gently touching my shoulder, 'is everything alright?' a kind voice asks me. I'm horrified to find I've been leaning against the wall and the voice belongs to someone I once knew. She has hardly changed at all, Mrs Williams, my old history teacher. Maybe a few white hairs in her jet-black hair, otherwise time has been kind to her, just a few laughter-lines around the eyes.
'Good heavens, it's Lindsey Jenkins,' she says, 'I never forget a face. You must be Tasha's mother, of course, I can see now where she gets her talent from.'
I'm lost for words. I did pass my history O-level, but I never went on to do anything to be proud of. I can't think what she's talking about, my daughter is the special one.
'I remember that play you put on for the juniors' she says. 'Didn't it just shake up all those old biddies?' she says and suddenly I remember.

It was the start of the summer term. I was about to take my o-levels and I'd been helping out with the drama group. Mrs Williams, or Adele as we called her then, wanted something different from the usual classical play. Quite how she managed to stay in a girl's own grammar school was beyond most of us. She smoked like a trooper, usually behind the bushes as we all did then, or underneath the stage itself. I suppose they kept her on as she doubled as the drama mistress. Suddenly we are laughing together as I think of that play, an adaptation of Oscar Wilde and I'd written part of it with her.
'Oh bugger,' she says now, 'we'd better get to our seats, fancy a drink after?'
'I'd love to,' and I mean it.

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I have to take a back seat, the hall is already full, but I know Tasha won't mind. She knows how much I hate crowds and that I'll be perched at the end of the row in case I need to bolt for the door. My parents are in the first row, waiting to cheer their granddaughter as she appears on stage. I look at my programme, seeing her name printed in so many places makes me so proud. Maybe I can face this after all.
I wish I had arrived earlier. I would love to see the panels and seek out my siblings' names on the honour's board. That's when I notice the shabby appearance of the hall. The school became a comprehensive about ten years ago, long enough for the panelling to lose that golden glow. I look up and see the great windows, now shabby with layers of dust and the great green velvet curtains tattered and torn. The chairs we are sitting on are dull and worn graffiti is everywhere I look.

She finally appears on stage, my own darling daughter who has scooped practically every prize in her year. Prizes for English, History, French, German, overall best student and winner of the debating society. We cheer her on every time she appears, my parents in the front row and me in the back. She's passed every one of her GCSE's with honours and her future is bright. I think of my last "Speech Day, as it was called then, the solemn occasion when the hall was lit with light pouring in through the high clean windows. I see again the teachers robed in full regalia, gowns of black with mortarboards perched on their permed hair.

The tears roll down my face and I'm not sure what it is I'm crying for. Tears of joy for my daughter, that goes without saying. But the others are different. I walked down the corridors expecting the highly polished floor. I'd even worked myself up into a panic attack, remembering those awful shoes and how hallowed a place my school had been then. Happiness vies with disappointment, when did I become such a snob? I hate what has been done to my school now that I can see clearly all the faded grandeur it once was.

The evening is winding down. Most people have left but I linger on, walking around the once grand hall, tracing my fingers over the history written on those walls. Tasha stands with me as we find the names of our family and the names of those long departed, some to fame and glory, others lost in the great wars.
Adele is waiting for us to join her for that drink. She makes a remark about Tasha's name being written there one day soon. I shake my head, no; she'll make her mark somewhere else, somewhere where Doc Marten's boots don't scuff the polished floors.

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© Lisa Fuller. 8/4/. 2006.