In the desert, you can remember your name

At some stage, somewhere between permanently and comprehensively destroying any chance I had with Emily, and conveniently providing a babysitting service to allow neighbourhood harlots the peace and quiet of an empty house, I changed schools. This could at least partly explain the date with the young, cute redhead, as the lack of eligible ladies at my new school was basically set in stone. It was boys only.

The new school was a fair hike from my house, about an hour every morning to get there, and a similar trek on the return journey. It was a centrally located, traditional, selective school, where we were made to wear ties, blazers, shiny shoes, and the whole old-boys-secret-handshake package. The school itself resembled nothing if not an early twentieth century prison, complete with watchtowers and rusty-but-solid spiked cast iron fences surrounding it. And it was into the prison cells that the twelve hundred odd boys aged fourteen to eighteen would file each day, and attempt to absorb the wisdom of the ancients.

I use this turn of phrase particularly because not a single member of staff appeared to be younger than half a century's vintage, except perhaps the limber and moustachioed Physical Education staff. They were also predominantly male, with a few notable exceptions. The matronly teacher of "modern history" (which really showed her age, as it started with the English Civil War) had a forties style hair-set, which we assumed was an original from the period. She was married to another teacher, who also taught history, and was about as warm and loving as a glacier slowly grinding a rock face into fine powder.

The art teachers were also female, and while one was, we were convinced, a friend of Sappho, the other was somewhere between twenty five and thirty five, a very difficult period to gauge accurately for a teenage boy. It's neither within the realm of still being desirable to them, yet somehow not quite to the level of "old". She was one of the favourites, and at least gave us some kind of female influence, but she was never an object of schoolboy obsession. Unlike the Australian History teacher.

Now, here was a woman, easily within range of our own age, that is to say; less than a decade fit comfortably between her birth and our own. She was also very attractive. Now I have to say, in retrospect, that attractiveness is so highly contextualised, that were I to see her on the street in any other period of my life, in any other context, I may not have looked twice. But to a room full of hormonal lads, colonial history was never so enthralling. She was mid twenties, I'd guess, when I started there, with no real age lines in her face to speak of, aside from some laugh lines at the edge of her eyes. She had deep green, large eyes, but not the kind that pop out when irritated, like some teachers', but expansive, like deep, calm lakes. And her lips drew your gaze, as they related the stories of the early settlement of the country we call home.

Her auburn hair was wavy, not curly, down to her shoulders, and she had been spared the humiliation of fashionable hairstylists, most likely by her low teachers' salary than by choice. The same limitation was put on her manner of dress, though she never looked less than stylish, she was neither a flashy dresser. But her clothing fit her very well, and accentuated the youth she had, which was sorely lacking in the rest of the faculty. And when she spoke it was with a clear, lyrical voice, which never cracked in anger, nor bellowed in accusation. Certainly not to the degree I had become accustomed in other classes.

So here she was, an oasis in the desert of masculinity. The sex symbol of a whole generation of schoolboys, and sure enough the subject of more than one of "those" dreams in my four years there. And it was all I had, for a long, long time. You have to remember your name when no one calls you.