Bullying & Bob

About 1985

Courtney had hit Eileen again.

Neither of them was in my class, but the head reckoned I knew them both better than their class teachers did – I taught them both physics – so it fell to me to visit their parents. So that was that evening done for. Marking delayed a day yet again. Ho hum.

Big Courtney had hit little Eileen. So Courtney’s the bully, and Eileen’s the victim? Well – yes and no.

You’ve heard how psychological bullying can be as bad as, or even sometimes worse than, physical bullying? How true that is.

Eileen was a small girl, not much bigger than me, but was the prime mover in a group of posh girls who teased Courtney mercilessly about her accent and grammar.

Courtney was a big, clumsy girl. She had no friends in the top sets, although she was in top set for everything except English, and near the top of the class in most of the unsetted subjects. She didn’t have many friends in the school at all.

Most of the posh parents wanted Courtney expelled from the school, and kept saying we were being soft on bullying.

What can you do?

Courtney hadn’t hit her very hard really. She’d reached the end of her tether and lashed out, but even then, she’d taken care not to hit too hard. If she’d just whacked her as hard as she could, Eileen would have been a hospital case – possibly worse, if she’d landed badly.

They were thirteen or fourteen at the time.

Courtney left school at sixteen, and the last time I saw her she was working as an assembler in an electronics factory. She said she wasn’t very good at it – too fiddly for her big hands and poor co-ordination. A great shame – she was a very clever girl, much cleverer than Eileen and her middle-class pals. She’d have been perfectly capable of doing Maths or Physics at a good university, and probably gone on to a research career. She got first rate O levels, despite her disadvantaged background.

The last time I saw Eileen, she was a trainee store manager in a retail chain. I don’t think that was an appropriate job, either. I can’t imagine her being very good with her staff, and probably not with the customers, either.

July 2001

Bob – not the personnel manager from Pericor! A different Bob, of course – was the new bloke in my life. He was a few years older than me, and had retired young quite recently. He’d been living with me for a couple of weeks, and I decided it was time to introduce him to my work colleagues – some of whom had been my friends since our university days decades earlier. Bob met up with us for lunch at the pub on Friday, and we all had quite a boisterous session, laughing and joking and playing pool.

Then Bob went off and we all went back to work. I didn’t have a good afternoon – I couldn’t concentrate, and developed a bit of a headache. In fact, I felt a bit ill. About three o’clock, I decided it was time to call it a day. I told Bill, at the desk next to mine, that I was going to go home because I wasn’t feeling very well, and got up – and felt really giddy and nauseous. Apparently I went white and tottered a bit.

“You really aren’t well, Penny. You can’t cycle home in that state. I’ll drive you home.”

Then I really did totter, and Bill caught me. He got a whiff of my breath.

“Your breath smells of alcohol, Penny!”

I’m tee-total, and the whole office – and Bob – knew that.

“Sit down, Penny. I’m going to ring the pub. What were you drinking?”

I’d never tried pineapple and grapefruit juice mix before. Bob had suggested it. Perhaps it’s better without the vodka. The barman confirmed Bill’s suspicions, and apologized for not realizing someone was playing evil games. I’d always trusted my colleagues, and I’m sure that trust was warranted. I’d thought I could trust Bob, too. Ho hum.

I got my key back from Bob that evening, and a grovelling apology. And threw him out, bag and baggage. I didn’t know where he went that evening, and I didn’t care. I hoped I’d never see him again. Had he thought about the fact I still had an afternoon’s work to do? That I would be cycling home across the city in a couple of hours? That two vodkas is actually quite a lot for someone of such small bodyweight, especially one not accustomed to alcohol?

The following day, I changed the locks. It probably wasn’t necessary, but it doesn’t cost a lot if you do it yourself. It was annoying, not having my bike for the weekend, but it wasn’t worth going into work to get it. I got the bus into work on Monday.

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