Susan
Story from Roué 1 ‘Four-thirty sharp after school then young lady,’ she heard the headmaster’s voice as if it were in another room, ‘and I mean sharp, don’t keep me waiting.’ Mr Watkins ushered the pretty young girl out of his study door into the old corridor of the Edwardian wing of the co-ed Grammar School, and for twenty seconds or so he peered over his half-rimmed spectacles at the retreating figure walking slowly and disconsolately back towards the newer part of the building. To his pupils Mr Watkins was quite an awe-inspiring, austere man of about sixty, invariably thought to be lacking in human warmth; a stern disciplinarian of the ‘old school’, a ‘just beast’ as most of the boys and girls described him. Every pupil without exception would have been astounded to have been able to read what was going through Mr Watkins’ mind as he followed intently the trim figure of Susan Miller as she disappeared from view; he almost reg