This throw-away line from George Bernard Shaw’s play Man and Superman is understandably hated by teachers. You may have heard it quoted dismissively or sarcastically to suggest that teachers enter the profession because they couldn’t have succeeded as writers, musicians, artists, designers, sportswomen… in their own right. Teaching their skills to others is apparently the second-rate option. It’s an infuriating assumption that is so far from the truth. Apart from its failure to acknowledge the craft of teaching as every bit as demanding as composing a piece of music or painting an artwork, it also overlooks the fact that so many teachers are also successful practitioners of the crafts they teach others. In any school staffroom, you will find musicians, painters, writers, furniture and fashion designers, public speakers and academics quietly honing their own skills at the same time as they nurture these skills in their students.
In the English classroom, we want our students to learn to write powerful and artful stories, influenced by the fiction they’ve read and discussed in the classroom. Quite often, we will take the opportunity to write with our students and to share our own attempts and flawed drafts as it is important for them to know that writing can be a satisfying and lifelong activity, whether or not we are published authors. Caroline St George is a member of the English department who not only passionately advocates the importance of creative writing in her classroom, but who writes herself and has recently developed her skills further by completing creative writing courses at Sydney University and at The Writers’ Centre in Rozelle. Our students are fortunate to have teachers like Mrs St George who not only teach, but who model and practise the writing craft themselves. This piece Empty Space was written by Mrs St George and published in an anthology by the Hunter Writers’ Centre entitled Grieve: Stories and Poems for Grief Awareness Month 2015. The brief was for contributors to offer a piece of no more than 500 words capturing the very human experience of loss. It is a short but poignant evocation of the experience of a grieving mother.
Rachel Duke
Head of English
Empty Space
The boy lay next to her when she woke. He smelt of soap and pawpaw cream. His eyes were closed. Soft curls, pink cheeks and hands that had not yet lost the dimples where his knuckles would one day protrude. A part of her wanted to reach out and smooth the blonde ringlets that hung over his forehead, to nuzzle her face into his warm neck but the space inside that now lay empty wouldn’t let her.
She rolled onto her back just as Will came into the room. “Ned called for you,” he said “ I put him next to you but you didn’t wake.” Not an accusation but she heard the frustration in his voice, felt the way he wanted to shake her out of bed, out of her slump as if he thought she could step out of this grief like undressing at night. When she didn’t reply, he scooped up the boy and carried him out.
Later when she woke again, they had gone. She stretched herself and moved towards the bathroom but she couldn’t find the energy to shower so she slumped back on the bed. It smelt of her sweat and the sheets were yellow where the milk had leaked from her breasts. She felt a flutter within, then smarted that her body could betray her. It was an echo of the child that until last month had grown inside.
She closed the blinds and stood naked in the half light of the bedroom. The mirror reflected a body she didn’t quite recognise. Slack skin and a raw scar that cut across her abdomen like a wonky smile. As she dressed she knew that today she had to do something to please him, something that said she wasn’t lost and gone for good.
Dinner prepared, she moved into the nursery where the mobile hung forlornly. The sheets, never slept in, were folded back in anticipation . With gentle movements she took each object and packed her sadness into the cardboard box until all that was left was an empty cot. The room seemed to expand like endless space that reached out and out. Then it stopped, shrank, and was just a room. She closed the door behind her knowing that this was more than just closing a door, that it meant something.
At three o’clock the front door opened. She heard the tentative footsteps that came down the hall and she practised a smile. When they came in the room, they both looked at her so expectantly that she felt her heart leap. She would try harder, she told herself.
Ned sat on her lap with his eyelids drooping, his soft curls brushing against her chest. She reached her fingers hesitantly to his face and smoothed away the curls and then nuzzled her face into his warm neck. Inside something fluttered in the empty space.
Caroline St George
