Farewell to Fairacre (10 page)

There was no one that I could turn to to answer these questions. It was up to me to make a decision.

'There is a tide in the affairs of men,
Which, taken at the flood, leads on to fortune,'

I said to Tibby.

Tibby yawned again.

'Or, of course,
misfortune,'
I added. 'I might be a perfect fool to give up, and live till ninety in dire penury.'

Tibby yawned again.

'Which means,' I said severely, 'that you would have to live on
scraps,
and not Pussi-luv. And you would not be having the top of the milk, because we should both be on the cheapest sort, and in any case I should be
watering it down!'

Oblivious to my warnings, Tibby rolled over to get the maximum benefit of the roaring fire, leaving me to wrestle with my doubts and fears.

The first day of term seemed even more bitterly cold than usual. I told myself that I had risen earlier and so the world was still in its night-time icy state.

The road to Fairacre was glassy, and the car did a few minor skids which could have been a problem if there had been traffic about. I drove slowly and was glad to enter the school playground and park the car.

Mr Willet had sanded the surface of the playground, for which I was grateful. I guessed that my pupils would not share my feelings, for there is nothing the boys enjoy more than a good long slide across the frozen asphalt, with a long line of them hurtling, one after the other, 'keeping the pot boiling'.

The school was warm. Mrs Pringle, resigned to the fact that winter was really here, had stoked up the two tortoise stoves and it was a joy to get indoors out of the bitter cold.

Mrs Pringle was flicking along the windowsill with a yellow duster, as I entered. She surveyed me morosely.

'You seem to have picked up,' she said. I thought she sounded a little disappointed.

'Thanks to you and other good friends,' I told her as cheerfully as I could.

'You want to keep in the warm,' she advised. 'The stoves is fair red hot.'

This was an over-statement, but I took it as a kindly gesture to a convalescent, as Mrs Pringle departed to the lobby.

It was good to be back. I looked round the empty classroom, with the bare shelves and nature table awaiting the fruits of the children's labours. The trappings of Christmas had gone. The paper chains, the Christmas tree, the nativity play, the school party, and all the other excitements of the end of term, were now behind us.

Here, in this empty and quiet room, I awaited the new term. Outside I could hear children's voices, and soon the room would be loud with the noise of children clamouring to tell me their news, scuttling from desk to desk, laughing, teasing and all sniffing from the cold world they had just left outside.

I went to let them in.

I had come to a compromise agreement with myself.

I would see how I coped with the first few weeks of term, and then decide whether I was fit to carry on or whether the sensible thing would be to retire.

A newly retired friend had mentioned that she had given in her notice before mid-February when she proposed to retire at the end of the school year in July. It seemed a long time to me, but when one considered that the post had to be advertised, applicants interviewed and
their
notices to be given in, it was absolutely essential to have this time in hand.

In a way, it helped me. I should have to make up my mind and stand by my decision. During that first week or two of term, I took stock. I felt well enough, but tired easily. I certainly did not have the burst of energy which followed my recovery from the first 'warning', but I was capable of teaching, doing my paperwork in the evenings, and coping with everyday living. What I had to admit was that I had really no resources of strength for any extra crisis that might crop up.

I recalled several emergencies which had occurred at school over the years. A child broke its leg, and I had to track down the mother, take them both to hospital, and leave the school for a good half a day to my assistant to run in my absence.

I myself had been smitten one day with a violent bilious attack which involved many a hasty trip to the lavatory, and eventually complete absence from school when I spent the rest of the day in the school-house bathroom.

Then there were always minor crises in a building as old as Fairacre school. The skylight alone was a source of sudden upheavals involving instant attention. And beside these structural defects there was the constant problem of
Mrs Pringle.

Matters came to a head one day towards the end of January. The weather was still wickedly cold, but no snow had fallen. Mrs Pringle moaned daily about the work it made for her, the extra fuel needed for the stoves, the journey along slippery roads to take up her duties, her bad leg, the doctor's warnings, and so on.

Just before school dinner time one of the infants fell and hit his head on the corner of a desk, and Mrs Richards and I were hard put to it to stop the bleeding. We put as much pressure as we safely could on the wound, while the poor child screamed blue murder.

'You'd better take him into Caxley casualty,' I said, 'and I'll track down his mother. I think she works at Boots. She'll meet you at the hospital I expect.'

The two set off in Mrs Richards' car, the screams slightly muffled by a boiled sweet from the school sweet tin. I coped with my extended family of pupils, until my assistant returned at two o'clock.

'They stitched him up, and he and his mother came home with me. He's much calmer, and has been put to bed. Look, it's begun!'

She pointed to the window, and there were whirling snowflakes, so thick that it was impossible to see the school house, my old home, across the playground.

We closed school early, and I had a nightmare journey over the few miles to Beech Green, for the roads seemed even slipperier than before, and the windscreen wipers could not cope adequately with the raging blizzard.

It was a relief to get indoors and to put the kettle on. As I drank my tea, I found that the old familiar shakes were back. Worse still, I was horrified to find that tears were coursing down my cheeks.

I replaced my cup with a clatter into the saucer, and leant back, defeated, in the chair.

This was it. It was time to go.

Once I had made my decision I felt better immediately. It was a Friday when school matters had come to a head and reduced me to such a demoralized condition. I spent the weekend contemplating the results of my overnight plans, and on the whole I felt mightily relieved.

Now and again, as I went about my weekend chores, I had twinges of doubt. Was it pride that made me loath to join my retired friends? Did I think that I was still as energetic and as capable as when I was appointed to be head teacher at Fairacre school? Did I imagine, when I surveyed myself in the looking-glass, that I looked younger and livelier than my contemporaries? Was I really able to cope with another two, or possibly more, years before I retired?

The honest answer to these questions was 'No'. Since my first stroke - mild or otherwise - I was not the robust and carefree woman that I had been. The second attack had robbed me of the small amount of self-confidence I had nurtured since the first. It was time to face reality.

And so I pottered about that weekend, and faced the future. February would begin in a day or two's time, and I should let the vicar know first, as head of the school governors and a dear friend of many years, just what I had decided to do.

Then I should confide in Mrs Richards, asking her to keep the matter to herself for a day or two while I composed a letter of resignation to the local authority.

I spent some time reviewing my financial arrangements. My newly retired colleague in Caxley had told me that my small teacher's pension would be paid as soon as I retired in July. I should also receive a substantial amount as my 'lump sum'.

This was comforting news. Moreover as I had told Amy, I had some savings in Caxley Building Society, and a wad of Savings Certificates somewhere upstairs, not to mention my useful Post Office book which was frequently raided in emergencies, but I had the inestimable good fortune of owning my own home, thanks to dear Dolly Clare's generosity. Few people, facing retirement, could be so happily placed.

I had no family problems, no husband or children to consider. I was my own mistress, and apart from the recent minor health setbacks, I was hale and hearty.

By the end of that weekend which had started so disastrously, I was beginning to look forward to my more leisured existence. Forewarned by my contemporaries, I should not make the mistake of being bounced into various village activities except those of my own choosing. But I should be able to be useful to my friends in various ways, babysitting for Eve and Horace Umbleditch, for instance, or running non-driving neighbours to Caxley when needed.

My ties with Fairacre would not be severed, for Bob Willet and Joseph Coggs would come to help in the garden, and Mrs Pringle would be with me every Wednesday until death did us part, I felt sure.

I went to bed on Sunday night facing a rosy future.

***

I had rung the vicar and asked if I might call after school on Monday.

'Come to tea,' had been the reply, and here I was pulling up outside the vicarage door which stood open hospitably.

'Tea first, and business later,' decreed Mrs Partridge, proffering buttered toast.

The fire crackled. Outside the birds were squabbling at the bird-table, an easterly wind ruffling their feathers and rattling the leaves of the laurels near by. It was good to be in the warm with old friends.

'Now tell us the news,' said Gerald Partridge when he had removed the tray to a side table.

I told them.

Dismay contorted their faces as I explained my plans, and I began to feel horribly guilty. But I soldiered on until the end of my monologue, and then waited for comment.

To my surprise, the vicar rose from his chair, enveloped me in an embrace and kissed me on both cheeks.

'What shall we do without you?' he cried.

'We shall have to manage,' said his wife resolutely, watching her husband return to his chair. She turned to me. 'It's a terrible blow, you know, but I'm sure you are doing the sensible thing. We've been so lucky to have you at the school for so long. And you've given us plenty of notice, thoughtful as always.'

'Won't you change your mind?' pleaded the vicar.

I shook my head. 'I've thought about it for ages,' I told him. 'I'm going to miss the school, but I feel I must go.'

'How we shall miss her,' he said, so mournfully that I felt he could not have been more cast down if I were emigrating to Australia.

'I shall only be at Beech Green,' I pointed out. 'And I hope you'll come and see me frequently with all my other Fairacre friends.'

They looked a little more cheerful, and we began to discuss the practical side of the matter.

'We have a governors' meeting this month,' said Gerald Partridge, 'so we can tell them then.'

I told him about sending in my resignation, and informing those involved. I think we were all feeling more settled when the time came for me to depart.

The wind was still whipping the bare trees, and sending flurries of dead leaves across the road, as I drove home. It was already dark, and it was plain that the night would be rough and cold. It was the weather to be expected in February, when the children had perforce to spend their playtime indoors and the lack of fresh air and exercise dampened the spirits of us all.

I looked ahead through the rain which now spattered the windscreen, at the windy road which led to home.

Before next winter, I told myself, I should be enjoying the comfort of my own fireside in the afternoons, while my successor coped with Fairacre school. And the skylight, of course. Not to mention Mrs Pringle!

I turned into my gateway in roaring high spirits.

It was during this bleak spell of weather that Henry Mawne gave his lecture on 'Birds of Prey' at Caxley.

Two days before the event John Jenkins rang up to say that he would give me a lift.

'Saves a lot of us wandering round trying to find a parking place,' he said. 'It begins at seven. Shall I pick you up at six thirty?'

'That's fine,' I said. 'Unless you'd like to come and have tea here first?'

'I should like that very much,' he said, and it was left that he would arrive at about five. I decided that it would be as well to provide something fairly substantial, such as crumpets, or sandwiches perhaps, so that we were fortified for Henry's evening.

The next day Henry rang.

'I'll pick you up at six,' he announced. 'Must get in a bit early to see about the plugs. Every hall I go to seems to have different electrical arrangements. Such a nuisance, but I have a first-class adaptor.'

I explained about John and invited him to join us.

'Well, that's cool, I must say,' spluttered Henry. 'He knows we made the arrangements last time we met. I said I'd pick you up.'