05 Please Sir! (25 page)

‘Even postmen ’ave dreams, Amelia,’ he said.

‘And what’s yours, Ted?’

‘The trumpet, Amelia,’ he said quietly. ‘Ah allus wanted t’play the trumpet, ever since ah were a boy. It’s a marvellous instrument.’

Amelia looked at Ted as if for the first time and wished her father could have been here, sat beside her.

Then she smiled. Perhaps he was.

When I drove into the school car park, Dan and Jo’s two-tone-green ‘F’-registered Wolseley Hornet was already there.

Dan had come into school to deliver a safety talk to the children on being careful about speaking to strangers and, as headteacher, I was growing increasingly aware that health and safety issues were becoming more pressing as each year went by. Dan was rightly very proud of himself, having just passed all three parts of his promotion exams, including the traffic and crime papers as well as general police duties. It meant that he was qualified to act as sergeant while the regular sergeant was on holiday.

Jo was clearly delighted for her husband. ‘He’s
Acting
Sergeant this week, Jack,’ she said, ‘so he gets
two
stripes on his uniform instead of three. Apparently, Sergeant Grayson at the Easington police station is on holiday. He’s gone back to Hull to support his favourite football team.’

‘Well, somebody has to,’ I said, slightly uncharitably. Hull City, as usual, was languishing in one of the lower divisions of the football league.

Jo grinned. ‘Don’t forget to mention the stripes, Jack. He’s so chuffed. In fact I nearly sewed some on his pyjamas!’ She laughed and set off to her classroom, ready for the morning bell.

The huge figure of Dan Hunter was in the school hall, pinning up a few posters of people in assorted uniforms, including nurses and firemen. ‘Good morning, Dan,’ I said, ‘and congratulations on passing your exams.’ I shook his giant fist and he smiled a little shyly.

‘Thanks, Jack,’ he said, looking down self-consciously at his gleaming white chevron stripes. ‘Takes some getting used to, and the other lads at the station are pulling my leg something rotten.’

‘I can imagine,’ I said. ‘Anyway, thanks for coming in. It must be a busy week for you with all the extra responsibility.’

The morning assembly went well and Dan was truly a gentle giant with all the children, guiding them carefully through the difficult concept that strangers might not be all they seemed.

When the bell rang for morning break I was on duty and I pulled on my old duffel coat and college scarf while Anne made me a welcome hot coffee. The children seemed oblivious to the cold weather. Tracy Hartley was teaching a group of infants to play hopscotch while Amanda Pickles was bouncing a tennis ball and chanting, ‘Red, white and blue, the Queen’s got the flu, the King’s got the tummy ache, and I don’t know what to do.’ Meanwhile, against the school wall, a type of leapfrog game was in progress and Dean Kershaw and a group of younger boys were chanting, ‘Jimmy, Jimmy, knicker knacker, one-two-three.’

In the shelter of the school porch, eight-year-old Betsy Icklethwaite had looped a length of thick string around Louise Hartley’s hands. ‘Hold it still,’ said Betsy, ‘and I’ll show you ‘ow to make a cat’s cradle and afterwards you can ‘ave a go.’ Then she used a series of careful moves with her index finger, little finger and thumb to create patterns just as her mother had taught her. Louise’s eyes were wide with interest. ‘Now,’ said Betsy, ‘what’s it t’be nex’, a soldier’s bed or a fish in a dish?’

A hammering noise on the other side of the village green caught my attention. Sixty-six-year-old Oscar Woodcock was pinning a poster that read
RAGLEY ANNUAL SHED WEEK
on one of the telegraph poles outside his terraced cottage next to The Royal Oak.

Oscar was proud of being the president of the Ragley Shed Society and especially so during the first week in March. Posters all round the village announced it was Shed Week, the time when the men of Ragley opened up their sheds to reveal their private world to other like-minded and equally eccentric shed-owners.

The favourite was undoubtedly Oscar’s shed as he used it for brewing cider. Oscar would pick apples from the trees in his garden, let them mature for a week and then tip them into his ‘scratcher’, a home-made cider press. He knew that a sack of apples would make a gallon of apple juice. Then he would pour the liquid into a one-gallon glass demijohn and add wine yeast to start the fermentation. Growing up in Somerset and making scrumpy as a boy had provided him with a special expertise. For Oscar, one glass of his potent mixture tended to solve all his problems; two glasses, and he couldn’t remember what they were in the first place.

It was lunchtime when a worried-looking Vera pulled up in her Austin A40 in the school car park. In the staff-room, Sally was turning the handle of our spirit duplicator to produce multiple copies of guitar-chord shapes for her beginners’ group and Jo was preparing a teacher’s guide for our new computer. I was putting the final touches to our revised scheme of work for science as County Hall had requested yet another document for the proposed ‘common curriculum’.

Anne was making a fresh pot of tea while chuckling over an article in the
Yorkshire Post
under the headline ‘Women firefighters’. Apparently, the Deputy Chief fire officer had said, ‘Women of suitable physique can be trained as firefighters and, under the Sex Discrimination Act, we are obliged to recruit women. They will undergo the same physical tests as men. There should be no problem apart from the slight difference in chest measurements.’ Too true, thought Anne.

It was at that moment that Vera hurried into the staff-room, looking distraught.

‘Is everything all right, Vera?’ said Sally.

‘Come and sit down,’ said Jo.

Anne was concerned. ‘You look a little pale,’ she said. ‘Would you like a cup of this tea?’

‘What is it, Vera?’ I asked.

Vera put her head in her hands and burst into tears.

While this drama was being played out, Oscar Woodcock, the recently retired manager of the local refuse tip, had finished putting up the poster and was tidying his shed ready for the influx of visitors on Saturday morning. Like a modern-day ‘Stig of the Dump’ he recycled everything he could and over the years had collected the cast-offs of the villagers of Ragley and Morton.

His huge wooden shed resembled an incongruous home, with a three-piece leather suite, a discarded but very fine Axminster carpet, a nest of G-Plan tables, an ornately carved antique pine bookcase stacked with old hardbacks and a complete set of
Encyclopaedia Britannica
and a paraffin heater. Also, thanks to Mrs Dudley-Palmer he wasn’t short of the latest electrical appliances, including a soda stream and a Breville sandwich toaster. He wiped the surface of an out-of-stock Habitat kitchen unit and arranged a set of 1953 Coronation mugs next to his electric kettle. Then he sighed with satisfaction. There was something about his shed that made him feel secure, safe and wonderfully sanguine … probably linked to the ever-present smell of potent cider. Sadly, it was a feeling that quickly dissipated when his wife’s piercing voice called him to come in and help with the housework.

In Ragley School, it was a difficult afternoon and Vera insisted on staying at her desk until afternoon break, when everyone in the staff-room ganged up on her and sent her home to look for Maggie. At the end of school Anne completed reading
The Tale of Squirrel Nutkin
to her class and then encouraged a discussion, but it wasn’t
squirrels
that the children had in mind.

‘Has Miss Evans found her cat?’ asked a concerned Jemima Poole.

‘I don’t think so, Jemima,’ said Anne, ‘but I’m sure she will turn up.’

At four o’clock we gathered in the staff-room as the telephone rang and Sally took the call. It was Vera. Maggie was still missing.

‘Don’t worry,’ said Sally, ‘she’ll turn up and, in the meantime, I’ll prepare some posters and we’ll distribute them around the village tonight.’

Anne, Sally and Jo took the High Street shops and I was given a poster for Pratt’s garage. As I pinned the poster to the scruffy noticeboard next to the counter, Victor had other problems on his mind.

‘Ah’ve gorra touch o’ t’pneumonics,’ said Victor, rubbing his chest, ‘an’ ah’m short o’wind.’

‘I’m sorry to hear that, Victor,’ I said.

‘An ah’ve gorra sceptic throat. Ah told Dr Davenport ah’d allus ’ad a sceptical throat and ’e said ’e weren’t s’prised.’

‘I see,’ I said.

‘So, all in all, ah’m not feeling m’self, so t’speak,’ said the mournful Victor. ‘Ah’m proper poorly, but like all men ah don’t complain, ah just battle on,’ he added with a touch of martyrdom. ‘An’ ah ’ope Miss Evans finds ’er cat,’ he shouted after me as I walked out into the gloom.

On Friday morning Vera was up early, searching the grounds for her beloved Maggie. Around her, in the vicarage garden, birds were pairing up and claiming their territory and chattering with new vigour. Snowdrops, aconites and crocuses should have cheered the spirit but, for Vera, her senses were blunted. When she returned to her spotless kitchen, the fragrant scent of hyacinths on the window ledge went unnoticed. Maggie had not been found.

Meanwhile, the villagers had been mobilized and, in the grey early-morning light, parents and children were looking in outbuildings and gardens. Even Ronnie Smith had been pressed into service. Ruby had mixed an old-fashioned remedy of butter, honey and lemon juice into a mugful of boiling water and forced him to climb out of his sick bed.

At eight o’clock, when Dan Hunter dropped off Jo in the school car park, there was the sound of a dog barking. Jimmy Poole was being pulled by Scargill on his lead across the village green towards Oscar Woodcock’s gate, where Ted Postlethwaite was about to deliver a letter. ‘Oh no,’ shouted Ted, ‘not again!’

The little terrier seemed more excited than usual and, to Ted’s surprise and great relief, he scampered down Oscar’s path and resumed his barking outside the shed. Dan, in his smart uniform, walked across the green to see what all the fuss was about.

‘Ah think there’s summat in Oscar’s shed,’ said Ted.

Oscar came out to investigate and then went back indoors for his shed key. When he unlocked it, both Oscar and Ted looked up at Dan, unwilling to set foot inside.

‘Well, I never,’ said Dan as he emerged with a sleepy cat in his arms. Maggie had enjoyed her rest, fortified by the occasional mouse washed down with the spillage from Oscar’s cider.

‘Well done, Scargill,’ said Ted with a smile and Jimmy beamed from ear to ear.

‘Miss Evans will be thrilled,’ said Dan.

Vera never heard the true story. Each morning for several weeks Maggie had enjoyed taunting Scargill, the bossy little Yorkshire terrier, from the safety of the high wall that surrounded Oscar’s garden, before returning home for breakfast at the vicarage. However, yesterday morning was different. A sudden backfire from Deke Ramsbottom’s tractor had caused her attention to be diverted at the very moment Jimmy Poole had let loose his beloved Scargill. With bared teeth and pent-up vengeance, Scargill had chased Maggie through an open gateway and down an overgrown path towards a garden shed, where Maggie took refuge at the very moment Oscar emerged and locked the door behind him. Then Scargill ran back to the village green, spotted an old adversary, and promptly satisfied his vengeance on Ted Postlethwaite’s ankle. Maggie was forgotten and honour had been satisfied.

By Saturday morning, life had returned to normal in Ragley village.

For Ted Postlethwaite it was his ‘job and knock’ day; there was no second post and he could go home after his morning delivery. However, when he called in at the Post Office, Amelia had begun to prepare a magnificent meat and potato pie with an upturned egg cup to support the golden crust. ‘I thought you might like a celebration meal, Ted,’ said Amelia.

‘Celebration?’ said Ted.

‘Well, all the village is talking about how you and Scargill found Miss Evans’s cat.’

Ted smiled and reflected that perhaps Scargill wasn’t so bad after all. His bark was definitely better than his bite.

Meanwhile, in Prudence Golightly’s General Stores, Ruby stood in the queue, holding her shopping bag and clutching a 3p-off coupon for Bird’s Instant Whip from the
Daily Mirror
. In front of her Vera had just presented Prudence with a birthday card.

‘Thank you, Vera,’ said Prudence: ‘you
remembered
.’

‘Of course, Prudence,’ said Vera.

‘And what can I get you?’ asked Prudence.

‘A large tin of your best Whiskas cat food, please, Prudence,’ said Vera.

Prudence peeled off the 31p label and handed the tin over the counter. ‘On the house, Vera,’ she said with a smile.

‘That’s kind, Prudence,’ said Vera. ‘Maggie will enjoy this.’

‘It was terrific news, Vera,’ said Prudence.

‘Yes, such a relief.’ She held up a Piercy’s Butcher’s bag that contained a juicy bone. ‘And I’m about to deliver a present to Mrs Poole for her clever dog. You never know, my Maggie and little Scargill may be friends one day.’

A group of parents assisted in the making of seventeenth-century costumes for the children in Classes 3 and 4 in preparation for tomorrow’s visit to Clarke Hall, Wakefield
.