MISS Jean de V Schutz died last month at the age of 92 despite having been a heavy smoker. I know this because of the many times I was sent to her office. A journey through the grey and still-wet mist of the vile lily of the valley air freshener is a walk I took regularly.
Jean would come into focus as I stood blinking. Seated on her solid teak chair behind her headmistress desk or emerging from the side room carrying an empty glass ashtray, she would stare me down. Just stare. Holding my gaze, she would slide the ashtray across the glass atop her huge teak desk in one movement until it was behind the simple flower arrangement. But I could still see it.
She had icy eyes. Blue or green. They were as bright as her white-grey hair, which was always short with a side parting; the front swept back and held in place with Brylcreem. Her face was inexpertly powdered and she always wore bright lipstick. Red or pink. Never peach.
“You were smoking behind the prefab.”
She would rise to her feet slowly. Like a reluctant weightlifter.
She wasn’t asking. But I answered. “Yes, Miss Schutz.”
She was tall and her build was block-like with no curves to speak of. She paid no attention to the colours and shoulder pads the early 80s offered. Jean stuck to her two-piece skirt and jacket day in and day out. Colours ranged from beige to greige to moss green as if on loan from the Socialist Unity Party of East Germany.
She stood like a prison guard with her feet slightly apart and her hands behind her back. And in each and every instance I thought: I love you. She had that perfect blend of Stasi meets Soul. I see you, Miss Schutz.
At the end of one visit to Soul Stasi she said: “If it weren’t for your father, I would expel you.” Those were her exact words. But she didn’t want to expel me. She saw me too.
On my first day at Jeppe High School for Girls in January 1980, among the 60 or 70 new girls was one Sonia Zocchi. Fresh from convent school. She was a vision of correctness from her spierwit collar to her pikswart shiny shoes. Her shoelaces were identical twins, her teeth shone below her brown doe-like eyes. Her hair was a barber’s cut.
Sonia was soon part of a gang (they may have called it a “group") called The Burning Sisters. They were a mismatched bunch that stuck together, and Sonia spent a lot of time working on her Lady Di scrapbook. I was roughing up girls who wouldn’t hand over any and all Rod Stewart posters without a fight.
Some two-and-a-half years later, Miss Schutz announced on the intercom that she wanted Sonia Zocchi and I to report to her office immediately. Once there, Jean introduced us to Lea Thompson. Freshish from a newly independent Zimbabwe.
“You two are going to befriend Lea and help her settle in”.
So we did, and 41 years later we still speak every day.
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