05 Please Sir! (5 page)

‘And the major left you an invitation on your desk,’ he added.

‘Thank you, Joseph,’ said Vera in a distracted way. Although she was staring out on the playground and had a clear view of Heathcliffe Earnshaw hiding his new spud gun behind the school dustbins she appeared not to notice. Nor did she see his little brother Terry giving Jimmy Poole three marbles for one of his sherbet flying saucers. It was clear that Vera had a lot on her mind.

Fifteen minutes later, in the silent school office, Vera sat at her desk and reflected on her morning. She fingered the smooth edges of the elegant Victorian brooch pinned precisely on the neat lapel of her suit and wondered why her heart was still pounding. For a few brief moments she felt like a young woman again. Then she picked up her brass letter opener and reached for the thick, cream envelope with the Morton Manor crest. It was an invitation to afternoon tea at three o’clock on Sunday. She smiled when she saw the footnote in the major’s firm, level handwriting. ‘Hope you can make it, Vera – just a few special friends.’ He had underlined the word
special
.

It was early evening and the school was quiet now. Out of the office window the distant Hambleton hills formed a hazy purple line beneath a darkening sky. The paperwork from County Hall was increasing year by year and I was working my way through a revised health and safety policy, which made me think twice about the adventurous activities that were fundamental to our outdoor education weekends, when the telephone rang.

‘Jack, I thought you’d still be there.’ It was Beth; she sounded tired. ‘I’ve got a governor’s report to complete. I thought if I did it tonight maybe I could come round tomorrow and make a meal.’

‘That would be great, Beth,’ I said.

‘I was thinking about having a try at Delia’s
bœuf bourguignonne
and maybe use some of your dry cider instead of wine to save a few pennies. It sounds scrummy in the book.’

‘Can’t wait,’ I said.

‘It takes a few hours so I’ll come to the cottage around four, shall I?’

‘Perfect,’ I said, thinking it would give me time to do some housework.

‘And I’ll bring the report so maybe you could check it through for me.’

‘Delighted,’ I said.

There was a long silence. ‘And we need to talk,’ she added.

On Saturday evening darkness was falling and, in the evening breeze, the high elms were restless. On Morton Road bats swooped with blind confidence around the silent tower of St Mary’s Church. Vera closed the lounge curtains in the vicarage and, shortly before seven o’clock, switched on BBC2 and settled down to watch the Leeds International Piano Competition. However, by the time the sixth finalist performed, her mind was elsewhere and she knew there was something she must do.

* * *

Meanwhile, at Bilbo Cottage, after a wonderful meal, Beth and I settled down with a bottle of wine to watch episode three of John Le Carré’s spy thriller
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
. The portrayal of the mole-catcher, George Smiley, by Alec Guinness had proved compulsive viewing for us and we relaxed together on the sofa in front of my first log fire of the season.

An hour later we stood together in the kitchen and I washed the casserole dish while Beth made some coffee. With her perfect complexion and honey-blonde hair and dressed in jeans and a baggy woollen sweater that merely enhanced her slim figure, I wondered how she could ever have wanted an awkward, bespectacled Yorkshireman like me. Nervously, I tried to flatten the palm-tree tuft of brown hair that refused to lie down on the crown of my head. From the empty lounge, I could hear a television interview with Ron Atkinson, manager of Manchester United. He wanted George Best to return to the club but it was
my
return to Ragley School that was uppermost in my mind. It was this decision that had caused tension between Beth and me.

Our recent conversations had become a collection of silences. I could see the ghosts of what we might become: silent partners in a comedy of manners, acting our parts in perfect harmony but never choosing our own pathway. There was distance between us. It was time to talk.

We took our coffee into the lounge and I switched off the television.

‘Beth … I know you were disappointed in me when I pulled out of the chance to go for the bigger headship.’

‘A little,’ she said quietly and sipped her coffee.

‘When I knew Ragley
wasn’t
one of the small schools selected for closure, I was
so
relieved.’

‘I know, Jack.’

‘And I love my work. I’m really happy at Ragley.’

‘As
I
am at Hartingdale, Jack, but I don’t anticipate being there for ever.’

‘I understand that, Beth.’

She replaced her coffee cup and went to stand by the fire. ‘It’s just that I thought we had similar ambitions,’ she said as she stared into the flames.

I went to stand beside her in the flickering light. ‘That’s why we need to talk,’ I said. Beth was silent. ‘You see, I don’t want to be a
disappointment
to you, Beth … not any more.’

She turned to face me. ‘What
exactly
are you trying to say, Jack?’

I held her hands in mine and took a deep breath. ‘Beth … I’ll understand if you want to break off the engagement.’

There was a shocked expression on her face followed by confusion. ‘Oh, Jack … Jack.’ She put her arms round my waist and held me tightly. Her hair was soft against my cheek. ‘
You
are the man I want for my husband. How could you ever doubt that?’

‘But we’ve been
drifting
for so long now, Beth, and I thought you might want to find someone, well, better than I am, someone who will
achieve
in the way
you
want them to succeed.’

She looked up at me with a firm intensity. ‘Jack, even though I
was
disappointed when you decided not to go for the new headship, I could never be disappointed in you as a
person
… as a
man
.’ Then she lifted her head and kissed me tenderly on the lips.

‘It’s just that we’ve not spoken about the wedding for ages,’ I said. ‘I thought you were avoiding it.’

‘Jack,’ she said, ‘
look
at me and believe it:
you
are the man I want to marry.’

I felt as though a weight had been lifted from my heart. ‘Beth … I love you.’ I put my arms around her as if I never, ever, wanted to let her go. Then we kissed again … and again.

‘And I love you, Jack … so why don’t we plan a wedding?’

‘When?’ I asked eagerly.

‘How about now?’ replied Beth.

‘But it’s late and I’m tired,’ I said with a grin.

‘Then let’s have this conversation somewhere else,’ she said with a wide-eyed stare. ‘I’ve been thinking about hotels and wedding dresses and dates … and churches – for example, Yorkshire or Hampshire … In fact, your place or mine, Mr Sheffield?’ She took my hand, turned out the light and led the way to the foot of the stairs.

On Sunday the weather was cooler and the first fires of autumn had been lit in the cottages of Ragley village. As Vera drove down the High Street, long streamers of woodsmoke were being tugged by a gentle breeze into a slate-blue sky. She glanced at her wristwatch. There was time for a final rendezvous and, as the miles raced by, she rehearsed her words carefully. Twenty minutes later, the sheer magnificence of York Minster came into sight, towering like a sleeping giant above the rooftops and snickleways of York. By the time she drove into the station car park she allowed herself a reflective, enigmatic smile.

Then she parked and looked at the clock. There was time to speak to Hedley but what was there to say? It was over and had been for a long time. In fact, it had barely begun. Now there was a wonderful man in her life. She put her hand in her coat pocket and read the invitation from Rupert once again.

And, as she waited, she smiled. There really was a difference between infatuation and true love … and she knew what it was.

Following a meeting with the school governors, permission has been granted by County Hall for Mrs Smith’s caretaking duties to be extended by four hours per week
.

Extract from the Ragley School Logbook:

Friday, 9 October 1981

‘All the sixes, sixty-six,’ announced the confident bingo caller as he flicked a comb through his Billy Fury quiff.

‘You’ve got that one, Ruby,’ whispered Betty Buttle, but Ruby looked preoccupied.

‘Key of the door, twenty-one,’ reverberated the voice from the giant speakers.

‘An’ that one, Ruby. C’mon, wekken up,’ muttered Margery Ackroyd.

Ruby crossed off the numbers on her bingo card but her mind was elsewhere.

‘Downing Street, number ten.’

The ladies of Ragley and Morton sat round their tables in the Ragley village hall as the excitement increased. It was Thursday evening, 8 October, and the monthly bingo night was in full swing.

‘Ah’d know that voice anywhere,’ murmured Ruby almost to herself, a far-away look in her eyes.

‘Two little ducks, twenty-two,’ said the man with the faded red jacket and twinkling blue eyes.

‘Ah’m sweatin’ on eighty-eight,’ said Julie Earnshaw.

‘Yours and mine, sixty-nine,’ boomed the voice again.

‘Ah’m sweatin’ an’ all,’ said Margery as she crossed off the penultimate number.

‘Legs … eee-leven.’

‘Ah knew it,’ said Ruby, ‘it’s ’im … Well, ah never did, would y’believe it?’

‘Seventy-seven, Sunset Strip. C’mon, ladies, somebody’s got t’be close to a full’ouse.’

Ruby didn’t cross off number seventy-seven. She was staring at the only man in the hall.

‘Two fat ladies, eighty-eight,’ he cried.

‘’
Ouse!
’ yelled Betty, waving her completed bingo card in the air.

‘We’ave a lucky lady on t’corner table,’ said the tall, lean, chain-smoking fifty-year-old bingo caller. He stood up and waved at the group of ladies on Betty’s table. ‘Shout out y’numbers, luv, an’ we’ll check y’card.’ Then he stared and went silent. ‘Ruby,’ he said quietly but forgetting his microphone was switched on.

‘Does’e know you?’ asked Margery.

‘Glory be,’ muttered Ruby, ‘it
is
’im. Ah’d know that voice anywhere.’

‘Who’s’
im
?’ whispered Julie Earnshaw, for whom curiosity and correct grammar were not constant companions.

‘After all these years,’ said Ruby quietly.

‘So … who is’e?’ asked all the ladies at once.

Ruby smiled and put down her pencil. ‘It’s Seaside Johnny.’

Outside the staff-room window Friday had dawned bright and clear. It was a perfect autumn morning. The season was changing and the leaves were tinged with gold. In the hedgerows busy spiders were making their intricate webs, robins and wrens were claiming their territory, while goldfinches pecked the ripe seeds from the teasels. It was 8.30 a.m. and, in the corridor outside the school office, the sound of Ruby singing ‘Edelweiss’ from her favourite musical,
The Sound of Music
, was distinctly louder than usual.

I smoothed some sticky-backed plastic over the fraying edges of a white card on which the one hundred words of the ‘Schonell Word Recognition Test’ were neatly printed. ‘Ruby sounds cheerful,’ I said.

Vera looked up from her pile of Yorkshire Purchasing Organization order forms and smiled. ‘It’s good to hear, Mr Sheffield. She’s been a bit down lately.’

Suddenly there was the clatter of a galvanized bucket followed by a tap on the door and there stood Ruby. ‘G’morning, Mr Sheffield, Miss Evans,’ she said cheerfully. ‘Ah’m trying t’finish a bit smartish this morning, if y’please.’

Ruby Smith weighed over twenty stones and her extra-large double X, bright-orange overall was tightly fastened over her plump frame as she pushed a few strands of damp, wavy, chestnut hair away from her eyes.

‘That’s fine, Ruby,’ I said.

Vera always took a kindly interest in our good-hearted and hard-working school caretaker. ‘Don’t overdo it, Ruby,’ she said, ‘especially now the governors have granted those extra hours for you.’

‘Ah’m fine, thank you, Miss Evans – reight as rain,’ said Ruby as, absent-mindedly, she took out a soft cloth from her overall pocket and began to polish the door handle. ‘It’s jus’ that sometimes ah want t’world t’slow down a bit,’ she said, ‘an’ then ah can catch up, so t’speak.’

‘So, Ruby … are you doing something special with Ronnie?’ I asked, more in hope than expectation.

Ruby looked down at the door handle and the polishing slowed down to a standstill. ‘Y’jokin’, Mr Sheffield. Ah’m spittin’ feathers wi’ ’im. ’E won’t get off ‘is backside – sez’e’s gorra cold.’

‘Oh, I see,’ I said lamely.

‘Anyway, Diane’s doing me ‘air at nine o’clock an’ then ah said ah’d meet an old friend later in t’Coffee Shop.’

Vera looked up again with interest. ‘Oh, who’s that, Ruby?’