You old fucking bastard

The whole school, a thousand non-individuals, faded out obediently as she walked to the lectern. At the edge of her vision, she saw the headmaster's exopthalmic glare and realised that he was bulbously staring down the chatter. She remembered her time as a student, all the names he had been called - she had called him - behind his back. Frogger. Marty Feldman. Bog-eye. Wondering how many in the audience were secretly thinking similar nicknames and worse, she shuffled her notes on the wood. Even from a few feet away, it had the varnish smell that took her back to classrooms and chalk dust. She coughed, trying to keep it quiet but aiming it into the microphone.

"Most of you in the audience have probably never seen me before," she stammered. "Those of you that have were almost certainly too young then to recognise me now. My names Jane Harker, and I've been asked back by Fuh-Mr Trueman to talk to you about applying to Oxford-"

"No, no, no," croaked a voice, interrupting her. Halting abruptly, she let the whole stream of thoughts break and fizz in her mind. What on Earth? Who was that? Did she recognise the speaker? What did he think he was doing? And why, of all things, did nobody seem to acknowledge what an amazing faux pas it was to start heckling, heckling a guest speaker, for goodness' sake?

Indeed, nobody seemed to hear the interruption at all. The faces she could make out looked expectant and slightly puzzled, apparently wondering what this odd visitor was doing, pausing mid-speech as she was. Deciding to entirely gloss over it, Jane continued.

"I know this school doesn't often send candidates to Oxford, but I wanted to come and let you all know that there's no harm at all in trying. Maybe if I give you a few ideas of what life is like there, and dispel some of the myths-"

There was a sigh. "God, girl. Is that really how you've been taught to speak? Project, damn it," croaked the same voice. This time, she caught sight of the speaker. Sitting lopsidedly and paunchily in his chair was Mr Hackett, her old English teacher. But she'd heard on the grapevine - decreasingly giggly ex-schoolgirls, all from Tatham Secondary School, mostly with families of their own now - that he'd kicked the bucket. Thank Christ, too. He was, in Jane's opinion, a misogynist prat. "You're not talking to your squeaky chums now, girl," he croaked out, almost reading her mind.

What was going on? Why was nobody else reacting to this? At worst she'd expect a laugh or two, a reaction against her. But nothing. There he was, though, sat next to a few year 11's, one of them brushing against him. Large as life, and making her remember all her antagonism for the old fart.

"In my first week in Oxford, I remember that I felt completely out of my depth-"

"Useless," came the interruption. "Useless girl. Speak from your Ab Doe Men," he enunciated, talking as if to an imbecile. "I'd like to think, just once, that all my life hasn't been wasted on teaching you idiots to no avail."

She fidgeted on the stage, not knowing where to look or what to do or say next. Nothing in her life or in her world of actions and reactions had prepared her for this.

In a rented flat in London, she thrashed and thrashed against her bedclothes, sweating a storm, a sea, a pillar of salt. Her teeth ground and her eyelids twitched. But she wouldn't wake up yet. No, not yet. Her mind was not at all finished with itself yet, resolving its past failings and omissions and "what ifs?" It was to be a long night. Next there was Cross Country, she thought with a perverse entwining of love and loathing. After that. After that. After that was Naked Fashion Parade.