The Heart of the Dales (30 page)

‘I wonder if she suffered from cracked nipples,' mused Sidney.

At that moment my telephone rang.

‘Brenda Savage here,' came a sharp voice down the line.

‘Oh, hello, Mrs Savage,' I said, emphasising her name to let my colleagues know to whom I was speaking. Sidney pulled a gruesome face, David grimaced.

‘Following our discussions with Dr Gore this morning,' she said formally, ‘I feel it is important that we need to expedite matters ASAP. As time is very short and there is much to do, particularly in incentivising your colleagues to get aboard this project, I suggest we put our heads together. I have produced a possible paradigm and need to flag up a few things with you. Have you a window in your diary next week?'

‘No,' I replied simply. ‘I've a full programme of school visits, an English course to run and three governors' meetings.'

‘I cannot impress upon you too strongly, Mr Phinn, that we must push ahead with this,' she said testily. ‘Are you available now?'

‘Now?' I asked. ‘This very minute?' Better get the inevitable meeting with her over and done with, I thought. ‘I am free until two o'clock, and then I have to join an appointments panel.'

‘Then I shall come over and see you,' she said. ‘I shall be over straight away.' The phone clicked.

‘Mrs Savage is on her way over,' I told my colleagues insouciantly.

David snatched up his briefcase and made a hurried exit, followed by Sidney. ‘
Adieu, mon brave!
' he cried as he left the office.

‘Do you think I'm malleable?'

I was helping Christine wash the dishes that evening when I put the question to her.

‘What a strange thing to ask,' she said.

‘Well, do you?'

‘Think you're malleable?' she repeated. ‘You mean like a lump of clay that's moulded into shape?'

‘Well, not really like a lump of clay,' I said. ‘What I mean is “easily persuaded”.'

‘Why do you ask?'

‘Sidney says I'm malleable, that I take too much on because I can't say No to people.'

‘Well, for once I think Sidney's got it right,' said Christine, ‘You do take on too much and do tend to say Yes to people far too often.'

When Winco Cleaver-Canning had shown his whiskered face at the door that morning, clutching the play script of
The Dame of Sark
, Christine had discovered that I had virtually agreed to join the cast. When I arrived home, she had shaken her head and asked me crossly why I hadn't said I was too busy. She had asked the very same question when I had agreed to speak at a charity dinner, join a sponsored walk, help a dyslexic boy in the village with his reading and write an article for National Poetry Day for the
Fettlesham Gazette
. ‘It's a simple enough word,' she had told me. ‘Just say No.'

Later that evening, when I was reading the paper and Christine was doing some sewing, she said, ‘I meant to tell you that Andy is coming up on Saturday to fix the guttering. I don't know why you didn't wait until he could help you instead of trying to fix it yourself and bringing the whole lot down. Andy said it's a two-man job, so I'm assuming you will be able to give him a hand?'

‘I think, my dear,' I said jokingly, ‘that I shall follow your very good advice.'

‘And what advice is that?' asked Christine.

‘I shall just say No.'

By the end of that week, I was feeling more settled, under less strain. There had been no further sign of our visitors with the bushy tails and I hoped that they were settling down on the Manston estate. On Saturday, Andy, with limited help from myself (I held the ladders) fixed the guttering and finished tidying up the garden, and Christine cooked the most delicious pheasant and venison casserole for dinner on the Saturday night – on the proceeds of a little present Harry Cotton had brought round during the week. ‘What the eye doesn't see, the heart doesn't know,' said Christine bravely, as she prepared the meat for the oven. She had prevailed upon Andy to pluckand gut the pheasant.

On Sunday, a gloriously sunny day, we decided to give ourselves a day off, and went to Whitby. The tide was out, and Christine and I strolled along the vast sandy beach to Sandsend with little Richard strapped on my back. How I looked forward to the time when he was old enough to help me build castles, collect crabs from the rock pools in a plastic bucket, search for fossils, paddle in the cold grey waters of the North Sea and join me on a trip around the harbour in the old lifeboat.

That evening I read
The Dame of Sark
, which I enjoyed hugely, and became quite excited about ‘treading the boards' once again with the Fettlesham Literary Players. Sitting in front of the fading fire before going to bed, I also felt happier about taking on Dr Gore's latest little job. The discussions with Mrs Savage had gone surprisingly well, and we had arranged to meet again this coming week, when we would visit Manston Hall. We were both a little concerned that Lord Marrick's home would not have the same facilities as a conference centre,
and we needed a ‘site visit', as Mrs Savage called it, to acquaint ourselves with the layout, the lie of the land.

Both David and Sidney had been busy planning their contributions for the exhibition, and Geraldine, as I knew she would, had immediately agreed to put on a science display. As well as telephoning the schools that I wanted to provide material for an exhibition of children's writing, I had contacted the County Music Adviser, Pierce Gordon, and enlisted the services of the Young People's Brass Band to entertain the delegates on the Sunday morning. The brass band had at first been reluctant to change their normal rehearsal morning – ‘Christmas is a very busy time for us,' I was told – but when their band-leader understood that they would be playing at Marrick Hall, he agreed to switch rehearsal times.

Mrs Savage, for her part, busied herself confirming details with the hotels where accommodation had been booked earlier in the summer. She drew up the invitation list for the reception on the first evening, and finalised arrangements with the caterers for both that and the dinner on the Saturday night. She was planning to provide a short history of Manston Hall that would go into each delegate's packalong with the official programme, digests of the speakers' lectures, directions to the venue etc., and this was one of the reasons she wanted to go down to the Hall as soon as possible. All in all, things were progressing well.

I was in excellent spirits, therefore, when I walked into the entrance of Daleside Primary School on the Monday lunchtime. I had a veritable spring in my step. I was there to observe Miss Graham, a probationary teacher.

In the headteacher's room, with a cup of coffee in my hand, I explained to Mrs Blackett, a small, dark-haired, softly-spoken woman, what I intended to do while I was in the school that morning and asked if she had any questions or observations before I went into the first class.

‘You don't remember me, do you?' she enquired.

I looked at her a little more closely. ‘I'm afraid not,' I replied. ‘As you are no doubt aware, I meet many people on my
travels.' I sounded terribly pompous, so added quickly ‘And I'm afraid I'm not very good at names and faces.'

‘I thought you might have remembered me, and the occasion when we met.' A small smile played on the woman's lips.

I was pretty certain she wasn't an ex-girlfriend; was she a former colleague from my teaching days or, even further back, someone I was at school with? I looked again at the smiling face but no recognition dawned. ‘There are so many schools in the county,' I told her defensively, ‘and I meet many other people during the year at the conferences and courses I run.' She still held the amused expression. ‘One of my colleagues,' I continued, ‘worked out that it would take over twenty years for one of the inspectors in the team to visit every school in the county.' She continued to smile at me, and when she didn't offer to tell me where we had met, I said, ‘I'm sorry but you will have to remind me.'

‘We were on interview together,' she replied, ‘at County Hall for the post of inspector.'

‘Of course!' I said, and then did recall her. ‘It's… er…'

‘Dorothy.'

‘I remember now,' I said. ‘Dorothy Blackett. We had a very interesting conversation. You were a headteacher in the Midlands, as I recall, but you were born in Yorkshire.'

‘That's right,' she said, ‘and neither of us thought we were in with much of a chance.'

‘It was a pretty daunting experience,' I said, ‘with all the other hugely-qualified and experienced candidates, bursting with confidence, and that battery of questions from the interview panel. There was no one more surprised than I when I was called backinto the room and offered the job.'

‘Oh, I had a sneaking feeling you would get it. I could see how keen you were. I recall thinking you were a bit of a dark horse at the interviews and that you didn't give very much away about yourself.'

‘That was nerves,' I told her.

‘I've followed your progress,' she continued, ‘and from what
I have heard, you are doing very well and are making quite an impression.'

‘And I remember your saying, when you congratulated me, that you were rather relieved that you didn't get the job because you weren't sure whether you wanted the post or not.'

‘I did,' she replied, ‘and I guess that uncertainty came over at the interview. You see, my dream was to work in the Yorkshire Dales. That is what I really wanted. I was brought up here and wanted to return to my roots.'

‘And your dream came true,' I said.

‘It did,' she replied. ‘After the debriefing interview afterwards, Dr Yeats told me that the panel was impressed with my answers and any further applications I should make for posts in the county would be looked upon favourably. Last year, this headship came up. I applied, got the job and here I am.'

‘I'm so pleased,' I said, ‘and if I can –'

A sharp rap on the door interrupted me.

‘I'm sorry to disturb you, Mrs Blackett.' It was the school secretary. ‘I thought you ought to know that Gavin is in a bit of a state. His, er…'she paused, struggling for the right word – ‘er… little problem seems to have flared up again. Shall I send for his mother to come and collect him?'

‘Yes please, Vera,' said the headteacher, ‘that would be a good idea and I would like a word with her when she arrives. I really don't think he should have been sent to school in this state.' The secretary nodded and after she had closed the door behind her the headteacher shookher head and smiled. ‘Not a day goes by when there isn't some incident or crisis,' she told me.

‘It's the same in my job,' I said.

‘I suppose that's what makes what we do so different and challenging,' she said. ‘One day is never the same as another.'

‘So, what's the little problem with Gavin?' I asked, reaching for my coffee.

‘Little Gavin, all of seven,' said the headteacher, ‘arrived at school this morning obviously in some discomfort. He was shuffling away during assembly and I had to tell him to sit still
on a couple of occasions. At the end of assembly, I saw him heading out of the hall like a miniature cowboy who had just got off his horse after a hard day in the saddle. He was walking down the corridor bow-legged. I asked his teacher, Miss Graham, to find out why he was behaving in such a strange manner. In the classroom, Gavin produced an absence note from his mother – he'd been away from school for much of last week– explaining, as she put it, that he was ‘a bit sore in the downstairs department' because he'd been into hospital for an operation. She had written that it was nothing very serious, just that he'd been castrated.'

‘Castrated!' I exclaimed.

‘Yes, castrated,' said the headteacher. ‘Well, a very red-faced Miss Graham – she's in her first, probationary year of teaching and is of a rather delicate disposition – brought little Gavin and the note straight along to me. I discovered that he had not, in fact, been castrated – he'd been circumcised. I thought it more appropriate that the deputy headteacher, Mr Johnson, rather than myself, should have a look at it. Les was not at all keen, telling me that he could get thirty years for “looking at it”. Eventually, he was prevailed upon to examine the little boy's problem but only in the presence of the caretaker as a witness that nothing untoward happened. Les reported back to me that Gavin's little problem “in the downstairs department” didn't look that bad and that the child had been sent back to his class. Gavin returned to his classroom and seemed a lot better. Then just before morning break, Miss Graham noticed to her horror that little Gavin, sitting at his desk, had his trousers and pants around his ankles and, to put it euphemistically, had everything on display for the entire world to see. “Whatever are you doing?” she asked him and he replied, “Mr Johnson told me to stick it out for the rest of the day.”'

I spluttered and spilt coffee all down the front of my suit.

One of the delights of working in schools is to hear of, and on occasions witness, such humorous episodes. Children and young people have a wonderful capacity to make us laugh – sometimes consciously but more often than not, unconsciously.
Many children, particularly the little ones, are disarmingly naïve and possess the ability for such inventive thought and often use language in a surprisingly and keenly intelligent way.

A short while later, I joined Miss Graham in her classroom. I little thought that I would be taking over her lesson that Monday afternoon but that is what happened.

Miss Graham was indeed, as the headteacher had intimated, of a rather delicate disposition. She was a tall, mousy-haired, pale-faced woman whose dark brown eyes, like those of some small nocturnal tree-climbing creature, were alarmingly magnified behind large round glasses. Despite my reassurances she looked agitated when I joined her in the classroom after lunch.