'A' levels again

I was in a literature class. We were all about 16 or 17. Our teacher introduced the topic of First World War poetry, leading into W.B.Yeats. I'd been absent for a few days, and I realised the others had worked very hard in the meantime, as one by one they popped up from their desks to talk brilliantly about Yeats. I tried to get in, lifting my hand from my desk as a signal to the teacher, but always someone else got in first. The teacher was even looking at me, almost inviting me to contribute; but I would hesitate a split second and it was too late --some young genius would speak. I love Yeats and know quite a lot about him, but I was becoming intimidated. I thought, I seemed bright in my elementary school, because it had a working-cass intake, but these boys and girls have been to prep schools, and they're at least as bright as I.

Then I woke up properly, having half-woken an hour earlier and turned the radio on, and realised I was listening to Melvyn Bragg's wonderfully erudite Radio Four programme 'In Our Time', and this morning four scholars were discussing Yeats... They --overheard subconsciously-- were my alarmingly knowledgeable and articulate fellow students.

As I wrote a while back, it's very unfair to be dreaming of the anxieties of youth as well as those of age.

A memory from University High School, Melbourne, when I was 15. We were being introduced to serious Shakespeare --Macbeth. Our teacher asked for a volunteer to be Macbeth, and I wanted to do it. But I hesitated for a split second, and another boy put his hand up. I had to settle for Banquo. Fuck Banquo. If you want something badly, never hesitate.