Just Nicky

Tarzan August 25, 2006

I was thinking earlier about my Grade 4 teacher, Sister Tarcisius. Given that she was a brutal old battleaxe I was surprised to find that her chosen name was that of a 12 year old boy martyr. She was known throughout the school as Tarzan.

Tarcisius was cruel to those she decided were not good enough. The boy who wore an obviously homemade, hand me down, much repaired uniform. Another boy who burst into tears one day when asked about his recently deceased father The girl who she had moved to another class because she didn’t sing well enough to be included in the choir (which consisted entirely of Tarcisius’ class because she wouldn’t let kids from other classes try out). Each of them was humiliated mercilessly while the rest of us looked on, very glad it wasn’t us.

I was fortunate in that I was not there for about half the year (it was the year we moved to Canberra and back again) and, for most of the time that I was there, I was one of her favourites. I came from one of the ‘good’ families in the parish, meaning that my mother had been active in the mothers’ club, organised deb balls, did the flowers for the church and took the old nuns on drives in the country. Although The Mavis no longer did any of that by that stage, I was a child to be cultivated since the old bag knew that she needed to influential parents on her side to survive.

I did fall from grace after 2 incidents, though. The first was when I was in the exalted position of door monitor. My job was, sit in the desk closest to the door and when someone knocked, to jump up immediately and open the door to let them in, regardless of what we were doing. When the visitor was leaving I was to open the door to let them out. This was to be done with the speed and skill of a hotel doorman. On this particular day the principal (another nun) had come to speak to the class. I did OK letting her in, but when she was leaving she lingered near the door, speaking to Tarcisius. I knew it would be rude to open the door before she was ready to leave, so I sat and waited for an indication that she was going. Unfortunately I didn’t read the signals right and she was too quick for me. She opened the door and let herself out.

Tarcisius waited 30 seconds or so - probably to make sure the principal was well clear - before she blew up. She ordered me out of my desk and told me to find somewhere else to sit. There weren’t many empty desks in the room and no one looked like they wanted me sitting next to them. Can’t blame them really. In that moment I was the least popular person in the room. So I stood, rooted to the ground, not knowing what to do. Tarcisius grabbed me by the shoulder and pushed me down the aisle towards the back of the room, roaring at me to get moving. I still didn’t know where to go. Fortunately a girl called Julie (not one of the favoured few because she came from a family who were known to be ‘wild’) called out to me and offered me a spot beside her.

Tarcisius had opened my desk lid (yes, we still had those types of desks) and started to throw my things on the floor. “That’s right, go and sit with your friend Julie! You’ll make a good pair!” she yelled. Julie and I weren’t particularly friends before, but in that moment we were best buddies, thanks to Tarzan. So I moved to sit with Julie and down a rung or two on the ladder.

I never told my mum about it. She was laid up at the time with an injured back and not really in a position to come and defend me. Aside from a bit of fright, I’d got off relatively lightly and was probably better off out of the door monitor job. It was a position fraught with danger, given Tarcisius’ love for fawning over visiting dignatories (priest, principal, anyone with possibly more power than her) and her requirement that we do likewise.

The second incident was one I did tell The Mavis about, though, because Tarzan brought her and the rest of my family into it. And The Mavis always told me that no one has a go at your family and gets away with it.

One Monday morning Tarcisius started bemoaning how few children from the school she’d seen at mass the previous day. She asked those of us who had not gone to mass to stand up. Fools that we were, half a dozen of us did. Most of the others were kids from Italian backgrounds who’s parents didn’t speak english and tended only to go to mass when there was an Italian-speaking priest taking it. They were easily dismissed. One other kid came from a lower status family and I think Tarzan didn’t expect any better from them. But me, I came from a ‘good’ family and I was a disgrace to that family!

She went at me like you wouldn’t believe. Not physically, but standing over me verbally abusing me. Telling me that my poor invalid mother must be so disappointed in me. That I was responsible for making my family name dirt in the parish. That I was the indicator of one of the decline of one of the best families in the parish. When I tried to point out that no one in my family went and hadn’t for quite some time, predating The Mavis’ injured back, that just made her worse. I should have been a good example to the rest of the family and saved them from disgrace by attending.

To say I was shaken would be an understatement. I managed - just - not to cry and told The Mavis about it as soon as I got home. I didn’t want to go back to that classroom and I think The Mavis did let me stay home for a day or so. When I did go back it was with a 3 page letter. In it Tarcisius was told in no uncertain terms and at length that our method of worship was our business, not hers, and that it was not appropriate to be asking children loaded questions and then abusing them for answering honestly. It also said that if anything further was said The Mavis would raise the matter with the school principal and parish priest.

I gave Tarzan the letter when I arrived at school and she read it during recess. As we were coming back into class she grabbed me by the arm in a vicelike grip and said, “Tell mummy you misunderstood. Tell her it didn’t happen.” If there was one lesson I’d learned from her it was discretion so I squashed the impulse to retort that it did happen and shuffled demurely to my desk.

That night I told The Mavis what Tarzan had said and assured her that the original incident had indeed happened. I remember that Mum apologised because she couldn’t go down to the school to deal with it in person. I’m pretty sure that she did ring the school principal, with whom she was friendly, the next day because after that Tarcisius basically ignored me.

Eventually, shortly before we moved to Canberra, The Mavis was well enough and mobile enough to pay Tarcisius a visit, albeit using a cane to get around. I had never seen the old bag cringe and fawn so much before. She was obviously afraid of my mother and I was very pleased to see it. The Mavis was in fine Mavis form. Unfailingly polite, but with a nice hint of menace. It’s a performance I have aspired to, but never managed to replicate. She really should have been a lawyer.

When my family & I came back from Canberra (our short lived ‘forever’ relocation) there were 3 weeks left in the school year. I tried to convince The Mavis that I didn’t need to go to school, but she wasn’t buying it and I was put back in the same class. Fortunately Tarcisius seemed not to know who I was and treated me like a new kid. That was fine with me.

These days someone like Tarzan wouldn’t be allowed to teach. She was old when she taught me - probably in her seventies - and was already an anachronism in the school. I don’t think she taught for many more years. Her negative effect on the class was obvious. There was a long standing tradition in the school that classes that Tarcisius taught in Grade 4 were uncontrollable in Grade 5 and still pretty feral in Grade 6. We maintained that tradition. She had taught us well how to beat someone down.

Our Grade 5 teacher barely made it through the year before leaving due to a rumoured nervous breakdown. Our Grade 6 teacher, Miss Evans, fared better, but she was made of stern stuff and always taught the Grade 6 classes that had had Tarcisius in Grade 4, so she knew what she was dealing with. She made no secret of disliking Tarcisius and that instantly endeared her to us.

As well as that, Tarcisius fostered a nastily competitive and mean attitude to the other classes at our level, which survived for the rest of our primary years. She told us that we were her class because we were better than the others. Prior to Grade 4 I don’t remember any animosity between the classes, but after we were always fighting with one or the other of the classes are our level and some of the fights got incredibly nasty. Even in high school the old animosities took along time to die out.

It’s scarey to think of the long-term effects that old bat may have had on some of the kids she taught over the years. I was never prepared to be quite as trusting of a teacher again. The good thing from that year was The Mavis’ defence of me. It was one of those moments where you get a sense of what a parent’s job is - to go into battle on their child’s behalf - and it’s something I hope I can do for Finn when the need arises.