02 Mister Teacher (7 page)

Vera and Mrs Patterson-Smythe were soon alongside me.

‘Our WI cups and saucers definitely look rather dated,’ said Mrs Patterson-Smythe, with a sigh. ‘It’s just that crockery is so expensive these days and it’s vital we choose something appropriate.’

‘I agree,’ said Vera. ‘I shall have to keep my eyes open.’

‘I hope you do, Vera: it could be a vote winner at next year’s elections,’ said Mrs Patterson-Smythe, with a knowing wink.

Vera looked surprised. Then the penny dropped. It was well known that Mrs Patterson-Smythe wanted Vera to succeed her as President of the Ragley and Morton Women’s Institute. The member who introduced a new range of crockery would clearly be seen as someone to be reckoned with.

‘And we must keep out the riffraff from our committee,’ said Mrs Patterson-Smythe, with a steely glare towards Deirdre Coe, who was, as usual, expounding the virtues of her infamous brother, the local landowner and bully.

‘Jus’ you wait an’ see, ladies, our Stanley will be a councillor one day,’ announced Deirdre to a group of browbeaten hangers-on, as she devoured yet another sausage roll. Her double chin wobbled as she turned to stare in our direction with a smug grin and the innate confidence of ignorance. ‘It’s good ’aving powerful relations,’ she added menacingly.

It was clear that Deirdre blamed me for her brother’s enforced departure from the school governing body at the end of my first year at Ragley.

Mrs Patterson-Smythe shook her head. ‘And we’ve
simply
got to make sure that dreadful woman doesn’t become President,’ she said.

‘She has a lot of support,’ said Vera, ‘and she did win a monthly competition once, which is more than I’ve ever done.’

‘I’m sure your turn will come one day, Vera,’ said Mrs Patterson-Smythe confidently.

Sadly, Vera had never won a monthly competition in all her twenty-five years as a member of the Women’s Institute. She put it down to her non-competitive instincts. Although she had received a Highly Commended for her bacon-and-egg pie in April 1957 and was runner-up in the open-sandwich competition in August 1969, a first prize had always proved elusive. Unfortunately for Vera, in every village there is always someone deeply dedicated to producing the ultimate, perfect chocolate cake.

‘What did Deirdre Coe win?’ I asked.

I was soon to learn that Mrs Patterson-Smythe had an astonishing encyclopaedic knowledge of Women’s Institute affairs.

‘She won the “Best Bowl of Bulbs” in March 1973,’ she said, with a shake of her head. ‘And I still swear she bought it in Thirkby market.’

The internal politics of Women’s Institutes were becoming apparent to me.

‘No one has given finer service to this Institute than Vera, Mr Sheffield,’ said Mrs Patterson-Smythe emphatically. ‘She was Cupboard Supervisor in 1958, Outings Secretary in 1962, Produce and Handicraft Secretary in 1969, Press Secretary in 1974, and she has
also
been in charge of “Flowers for the Sick” for the past eleven years.’

Mrs Patterson-Smythe’s attention to detail continued to amaze me.

‘Well, it’s been a pleasure meeting you, Mr Sheffield, but, if you will excuse me, it’s time for our monthly competition,’ said Mrs Patterson-Smythe, with calm authority.

With that she walked briskly to the front of the hall, where a long row of jars of jam had been lined up on a trestle table. It was announced that Ragley village’s outstanding cook, Mary Hardisty, was to judge the October Jam-Making Competition. Mrs Patterson-Smythe made it clear that, prior to tasting, the anonymity of each of the seventeen competitors would be ensured by wrapping a paper napkin round each jar.

The jar of crab-apple jam came to mind. ‘By the way, Vera,’ I said, ‘Jo said thank you for all your help with the jam-making. The children were very proud of their results and she sent a jar for you. It’s in the crockery box.’

‘Thank you, Mr Sheffield,’ said Vera enthusiastically. ‘I’ll sample it tonight with Joseph back at the vicarage.’

‘Well, I’ll go now, Vera. Thank you for the hospitality and I’ll see you tomorrow afternoon.’

I walked towards the main doors and then looked back at the bustle of activity. Vera appeared animated among her friends in the Women’s Institute. She was clearly well-liked and respected and I felt lucky to have her as
my
school secretary. Vera had proved a trusted and loyal colleague during my hectic first year as headmaster of Ragley School. One of her strange old-fashioned foibles was that she preferred me to call her by her first name, whereas she insisted on calling me Mr Sheffield. ‘That’s right and proper,’ she had said to me on our first day together, just over a year ago.

Vera was an interesting village character. She lived with her younger brother, Joseph Evans, who was both chair of the school governing body and vicar of the parish of Ragley and Morton. They shared the spotless and beautifully furnished vicarage in the grounds of St Mary’s Church along with Vera’s three cats, Treacle, Jess and Maggie. Vera clearly loved all three, but undoubtedly her favourite was Maggie, a sleek black cat with white paws, named after her political heroine, Margaret Thatcher.

As I walked out of the village hall, I paused to read a notice advertising the next meeting of the Ragley and Morton Women’s Institute. The ladies met on the third Wednesday of every month at half past seven. On 15 November, Lady Alexandra Denham from Harrogate was to be the special guest with a reading from her book
Vegetable Dyes Through The Ages
. This was to be followed by a demonstration on how to make a plate-drying rack by Miss Duff from the Ragley Post Office.

I climbed into my car with the feeling I had just discovered a strange lost world and lived to tell the tale.

When I walked through the front door of Bilbo Cottage
there
was a note on the mat. It was from Beth and had been scribbled hastily on a page torn from a spiral-bound exercise book. It read:

Jack, just called round for a chat on my way to a residential course for deputy headteachers. Nothing urgent. Will catch up with you sometime
.

Beth
.

The word ‘sometime’ clattered around in my brain. I wanted to ring Beth, but I didn’t know where she was going. Cursing my bad timing, I sat at the kitchen table, stared at the note again and wondered what it was she wanted to say.

The next morning, as I drove into school, autumn leaves carpeted the narrow back road from Kirkby Steepleton to Ragley village. The hedgerows had turned to brown and the school field to burnt sienna. Midges danced under the russet canopy of the horse chestnut trees and airborne, fluffy thistle-heads lost their freedom in among the countless spiders’ webs lacing the iron railings. In spite of the uncertainty surrounding Beth, I knew I had found peace in this lovely Yorkshire village and I breathed in the clean air as I walked across the playground and pushed open the giant Victorian oak door under the archway of hand-carved stone. Another school-day had begun.

As Vera worked only half-days on Tuesdays and Thursdays, it was lunchtime when she drove into the car park
in
her spotless Austin A40 and walked into school for her afternoon’s work.

‘Good afternoon, everybody,’ said Vera, but without her usual cheerfulness. She made a cup of tea in the staff-room, walked through the open door to the office we shared, sat down at her desk and opened her
Daily Telegraph
. However, instead of searching out the latest article on the triumphs of Margaret Thatcher, or following the problems of US President Jimmy Carter at the Middle East summit, she sipped absent-mindedly at her tea and stared vacantly at a photograph of Muhammad Ali, who had won the World Heavyweight Boxing Championship for a third time.

This went unnoticed among the other ladies in the staff-room as Sally Pringle was showing seven-year-old Theresa Ackroyd’s topic folder to Anne and Jo. Theresa had written, ‘Louis Pasteur discovered a cure for Rabbis.’

Curious to understand why Vera looked a little tense, I walked casually into the office and sat down on the other side of her desk. ‘Hello, Vera,’ I said. ‘How are you?’

Vera looked thoughtful and gripped her teacup very tightly. ‘Fine, thank you, Mr Sheffield.’

I decided to probe further. ‘Is everything all right?’

Vera took a deep breath and then exhaled slowly. ‘I have a moral dilemma, Mr Sheffield.’

I pushed the door closed to shut out the conversation in the staff-room. ‘Can I help, Vera?’

She looked straight into my eyes. ‘I’ve always been an honest person, Mr Sheffield.’

I didn’t know what to say.

‘It’s just that I feel as though I’ve transgressed.’

‘What do you mean, Vera?’ I asked. ‘What’s happened?’

‘I’ve always wanted to win a competition at the Women’s Institute and, at long last, last night I finally won one.’

‘But that’s marvellous news,’ I said enthusiastically. ‘So did you win the jam-making?’

‘Yes,’ replied Vera. ‘I entered my usual raspberry-and-strawberry preserve that I make every year.’

‘But you’ve waited twenty-five years for this, so why are you looking so glum?’

‘It came second, Mr Sheffield. My raspberry-and-strawberry preserve was the best I’ve ever made and it was the runner-up.’

I was confused. ‘So how did you win, Vera?’

‘It was that silly woman, Mrs Crapper,’ said Vera. ‘When she hasn’t taken her tablets she gets confused.’

‘I don’t understand,’ I said, shaking my head.

‘You brought a jar of jam up to the village hall last night, Mr Sheffield.’

‘That’s right: it was in the box of crockery.’

‘Well, Mrs Crapper put it with all the other jars in the competition.’

‘Oh, I see.’

‘So I have a favour to ask,’ said Vera.

‘Anything, Vera – just name it.’

‘Perhaps it would be wise not to mention this to anyone.’

‘Of course,’ I said, in the whisper of a fellow conspirator.
‘But
don’t you see, Vera, you were still the winner. Of all the ladies who made jam in the Women’s Institute, yours was the best. So, morally, you’ve nothing to worry about.’

She appeared to weigh this carefully in her mind. ‘I believe you’re right, Mr Sheffield. It’s just that I’ve waited so long for this moment and it hasn’t quite worked out as I thought it would.’

‘But the outcome is you were the winner,’ I said.

Vera sat back in her chair, visibly relaxed and began to chuckle. ‘You should have seen Deirdre Coe’s face,’ she said. ‘It looked a picture!’

It was good to see Vera looking happy again.

‘There’s just one thing, Mr Sheffield. I know the crab-apple jam came from Miss Maddison’s class but exactly which child was it that made this particular jar?’

I looked through the office window. Heathcliffe wasn’t hard to find. He was one of our noisiest children. ‘It was Heathcliffe, Vera. Look, he’s over there by the far wall.’

Out on the playground Heathcliffe Earnshaw was playing conkers. The shattered remains of his opponent’s horse chestnut lay at his feet, largely because Heathcliffe’s father, an ex-conker champion himself, had hardened Heathcliffe’s conker in the oven. With the tribal yells of the victor, he punched the air and then leaned back against the school wall in order to resort to his favourite activity. With the expertise born of a lifetime of practice, Heathcliffe stuck a filthy index finger up his equally filthy right nostril. After some serious excavation he took
his
finger out and stared at it thoughtfully. Then with assured deliberation he put the sticky finger in his mouth and sucked it clean.

Vera visibly winced in horror. ‘Oh dear, so is that the little boy who made the jam?’ she asked incredulously.

‘Yes, Vera,’ I replied.

Vera considered this for a moment. To my complete surprise, she appeared to see the funny side of it all and began to laugh. She laughed so hard she had to dab her eyes with her lace-edged handkerchief. ‘I was just thinking of the certificate that was presented to me last night,’ she spluttered.

‘Why is that, Vera?’

‘Well, after the judging had finished, Mrs Patterson-Smythe stood up and praised my jam in a most particular way.’

I was puzzled. ‘And what exactly did she say?’ I asked.

Vera opened her Marks & Spencer’s blue leather handbag and took out an elegant white card, which was edged with a green border and inscribed
FIRST PRIZE: JAM-MAKING: OCTOBER 1978.
She passed it over to me and I read it carefully.

Underneath the inscription, Mrs Patterson-Smythe had written in neat, cursive script,
Congratulations! The small chewy particles in this excellent jam added greatly to the flavour and gave it a unique consistency!

We both laughed.

Then Vera put a sheet of carbon paper between two sheets of typing paper, fed them into her typewriter and
began
to hammer the keys for her first letter of the afternoon.

Meanwhile, Heathcliffe, at the tender age of six and completely oblivious of his talent as a supreme jam-maker, contentedly picked his nose in the October sunshine!

Chapter Five

Whistling John and the Dawn Chorus

87 children on roll. Police Constable Hunter visited school today in response to a complaint made by Mr Stanley Coe. The situation was resolved
.

Extract from the Ragley School Logbook:
Friday, 3 November 1978

IT WAS THE
turning of the season and the first frosts had arrived. Dense November fogs had descended upon the Vale of York, shortening the days and chilling our bones. Along with the dawn chorus of the birds, someone was whistling Johnny Tillotson’s ‘Poetry in Motion’ outside my lounge window.

It was Friday, 3 November, the day I met John Paxton, the village odd-job man.

I put down my cereal bowl, walked into the hallway, opened the front door and peered out into the gloom. The whistling stopped.

‘’Ow do, Mr Sheffield,’ came a loud voice. ‘An’ a champion morning it is an’ all.’

Out of the mist, a giant walked towards me.

‘It’s John, isn’t it?’ I asked. ‘Vera Evans asked you to come about the broken gate.’