Trouble at the Little Village School (45 page)

‘When?’ he asked.

‘This morning, if you are able.’

‘Is it about Danny?’ he asked quickly.

‘It is about Danny, yes.’

‘He’s not run away again, has he?’

‘No, no, nothing like that.’

‘Well, what is it then? Is he all right? Has he had an accident? Is he in any trouble?’

‘I really would prefer to see you, Dr Stirling,’ she said, ‘rather than discuss this over the telephone. I would appreciate it if you could come to my office, where everything will be explained. I can assure you that Danny is fine and that he’s not in any sort of trouble, but it is important that I see you.’

‘Well, I have Saturday morning surgery, but if it is that important I guess I can rearrange things. You are sure the boy is all right?’

‘Yes, I’m sure,’ she replied.

In Miss Parsons’s office Dr Stirling looked out of breath and anxious. ‘What is it, Miss Parsons?’ he asked urgently. ‘What’s happened?’

‘Please sit down, Dr Stirling,’ said the senior social worker calmly. She sat behind her desk and placed her hands on the top, locking her fingers together. ‘There is nothing to get worried about. As I said on the phone, Danny is fine. He’s in the other room.’

‘May I see him?’ asked Dr Stirling.

‘All in good time. I wanted to have a word with you before you see him. The thing is, Mrs Stainthorpe called me early this morning. I gave her my private telephone number in case there were any problems. She told me that she can’t cope with Danny. She has tried her best but it isn’t working out.’

‘Not working out. Well, if she—’

‘Please let me finish, Dr Stirling,’ interrupted Miss Parsons. ‘Mrs Stainthorpe said that when Danny came to live with her she found her grandson moody and distant and that he spent most of his time in his room, sulking and rarely saying anything. Since he returned after running away things have not improved, in fact she tells me things have got worse. Danny has become very untidy, plays his music so loudly that other residents in the apartments have complained, and he goes out without telling her when he is coming back. She’s had a letter from the school saying Danny is not doing his homework or applying himself.’

‘Miss Parsons,’ said Dr Stirling, ‘this is so completely out of character. The boy is not like that. He’s really not.’

‘I know that,’ agreed the senior social worker. ‘I think there is method in what he is doing.’

‘I don’t follow.’

‘He’s a bright boy,’ said Miss Parsons. ‘I think there’s reasoning behind his behaviour.’

‘You mean he’s deliberately being difficult?’

‘Yes. I do.’

‘So what happens now?’

‘Mrs Stainthorpe is of the opinion that Danny might, after all, be better staying with you. She sees how unhappy he is and she feels you are perhaps better able to deal with him, that the boy “needs a man to sort him out”. Her words. Now I want to ask you, Dr Stirling—’

‘You don’t need to ask me, Miss Parsons,’ he said. ‘Of course I want him to come back.’

‘And Mrs Stainthorpe says she will have no objections if you eventually wish to adopt Danny, but that she would like to see him now and again. She doesn’t want to lose contact with him.’

Dr Stirling looked at his hands. ‘Danny is right, you know. So often adults just don’t listen to children. They don’t take any account of their wishes. He never wanted to move in the first place, and if he had been left where he was then none of this would have happened.’

‘We do listen to what children have to say,’ said Miss Parsons. ‘We listen a great deal, but sometimes our hands are tied or our recommendations are overruled. It’s not easy, the work we have to do and the decisions we sometimes have to make, but we try our best and we can’t do more than that.’

‘Yes, I know,’ said Dr Stirling. ‘I appreciate all that you have done.’

‘Would that all endings were like this,’ she said smiling ruefully. ‘Danny is now back where he wants to be and that’s the main thing.’

‘May I see him now?’ asked the doctor.

‘Of course,’ she replied. ‘You know, Dr Stirling, Mrs Stainthorpe is not quite the hard and selfish woman that people think she is. Talking to her about Danny, I have seen a rather different side to her. He’s the only family she has. I think she’s lonely and genuinely hoped things would work out. I do hope Danny will keep in contact with her.’

‘I’ll make sure he does,’ Dr Stirling told her.

‘Shall we get the young man in?’ asked Miss Parsons.

Danny came into the room, his head down. He couldn’t meet Dr Stirling’s eye and twisted his hands nervously, gnawing his bottom lip.

‘Hello, Danny,’ said the doctor.

‘Hello,’ mumbled the boy, finally looking up.

‘Come on,’ said Dr Stirling, putting an arm around the boy’s shoulder. ‘Let’s go home.’

Back at Clumber Lodge Dr Stirling asked Mrs O’Connor to come into the sitting-room.

‘All’s well that ends well,’ said the housekeeper, bustling into the room.

‘As your Grandmother Mullarkey would no doubt say,’ added the doctor.

‘No, no, it’s Shakespeare, Dr Stirling,’ Mrs O’Connor told him. ‘Fancy you not knowing that.’

The doctor smiled. ‘Sit down a moment, will you, Mrs O’Connor. I would like a word with you.’

‘Is something wrong?’ she asked.

‘No, nothing’s wrong.’

‘Sure it’s a wonderful thing, so it is, to have the boy back.’

‘Mrs O’Connor,’ said the doctor, ‘when I went to collect Danny this morning, Miss Parsons told me that when he returned to his grandmother’s after running away, Danny I gather became quite difficult.’

‘I can’t believe that, doctor,’ she said.

‘Yes, he became very untidy, played his music so loudly the neighbours complained, went out without telling his grandmother when he would be coming back and refused to do his homework or apply himself at school.’

‘Sounds like a different boy,’ remarked the housekeeper.

‘Yes, that’s what I thought,’ said Dr Stirling. ‘Miss Parsons thought that there was method in Danny’s behaviour.’

‘Method?’ she repeated.

‘That Danny was deliberately being difficult.’

‘Doesn’t sound like the lad at all,’ said Mrs O’Connor.

‘No, it doesn’t. That he was intentionally being so unmanageable his grandmother might think again about having him live with her.’ Mrs O’Connor patted her hair and said nothing. ‘One wonders, of course, whether he was put up to it.’

‘Put up to it, Dr Stirling?’ said the housekeeper. ‘And who in the world would put him up to it?’

Dr Stirling smiled. ‘I wouldn’t know,’ he said.

Elisabeth called at Clumber Lodge later that day.

‘Hello, Michael,’ she said nervously when he answered the door.

‘Hello, Elisabeth,’ he replied. He looked gaunt and tired and sounded uneasy.

‘I called round this morning to see you.’

‘Yes, Mrs O’Connor said. Come in, come in. I wanted to see you. I didn’t have much chance to congratulate you yesterday.’

In the sitting-room Elisabeth sat in a chair by the window, next to the inlaid walnut table on which the photographs of the doctor’s wife had been arranged. She glanced at them and then looked over to the fireplace where Michael stood. He looked equally ill at ease, not knowing what to do with his hands.

‘I wanted to apologise for yesterday,’ she said. ‘Almost pushing you out of the door like that.’

‘There’s really no need,’ he replied solemnly. ‘I guess you had things to talk about and I came at the wrong time.’

‘Well, Simon turning up as he did came as quite a shock. I’ve not seen him for six years and he arrives on my doorstep.’

‘Quite a surprise.’

‘I didn’t recognise him at first. He’d changed so much. He had lost so much weight and he looked exhausted and unwell. Not the Simon I once knew. I never thought I would say this but I felt sorry for him. His marriage has broken down and he’s lost his job. He looked so sad and vulnerable. He told me he had been seeing John for the past few months. I never knew that.’

‘So . . . what did he want?’ asked Dr Stirling. He was desperate to know, but feared what he might hear.

‘To talk. He wanted to talk to me.’

‘What about?’ His voice quavered.

‘It was to tell me he was full of regrets and remorse, sorry for the way he’d treated me, how he had reacted to John’s disability. He said he’d had time to think about things and wanted to see me and tell me how bad he felt about it.’

‘Is that all he wanted – to talk and say he was sorry?’ He looked at her wistfully.

‘No,’ Elisabeth answered quietly. ‘He asked me if we could try again, put it behind us and get back together.’

‘I see.’

‘I really think he’s a changed man, Michael. I think he is genuinely sorry for the past.’ There was great tenderness in her voice.

‘So what did you say?’

‘To what?’

He coughed and swallowed nervously. ‘When he asked you to take him back. What did you say?’

‘I said—’

The door burst open and the two boys rushed in. Danny ran straight to Elisabeth and threw his arms around her neck. ‘I’m back, Mrs Devine,’ he spluttered. ‘I know I shouldn’t hug you an’ I won’t do it when we’re in t’school but I’m so made up I just can’t stop missen. I’m back wi’ Dr Stirling an’ James an’ Mrs O’Connor an’ mi ferret. I’m so made up, I can ’ardly speak.’

‘You’re not doing too bad a job, Danny,’ replied Elisabeth, her eyes lighting up. She turned to Dr Stirling. He was looking at her intently, as if committing her face to memory, his pale blue eyes shining. ‘And when did all this come about?’ she asked.

‘Danny’s grandmother felt, after all, he would be better staying here,’ he explained, ‘and of course we are delighted to have him back.’

‘And I’m comin’ back to t’school on Monday!’ exclaimed the boy.

‘Danny,’ said Dr Stirling, ‘would you and James go up to your room for a moment please? I need to speak to Mrs Devine.’ The boys could tell by the tone of his voice that this was likely to be a serious matter and not for their ears. ‘Go on now, off you go both of you.’

The two boys left the room but remained in the hallway, leaving the sitting-room door ajar, the better to hear what was said.

‘You were saying,’ said Dr Stirling. He looked stiff and tense and his voice had a slight tremor in it.

‘Yes, you asked me what my answer to Simon was,’ said Elisabeth. ‘Well, I told him I have a lovely cottage, that I’ve made many wonderful new friends, that I have just heard that I am to be offered a really exciting and challenging job, that I can see John every week and—’

‘And?’

‘And that I was in love. He is not the best-dressed man in the world and he can be stubborn at times and he’s very untidy and he’s a bit overweight and he’s quite shy and doesn’t say an awful lot, but he’s the sweetest, kindest man in the world and I love him.’

‘Oh!’ he said. ‘I think I need a drink.’ He poured himself a large whisky and downed it in one great gulp. ‘You love him, you really love him?’

‘Yes, I do,’ she replied, her eyes filling with tears.

He drew a huge intake of breath. ‘I don’t know what to say.’ He laughed with relief.

‘Say something, for goodness’ sake,’ said Elisabeth.

‘I wrote you a letter when I got home last night,’ he said, reaching into his pocket. ‘You know I’m not that good at communicating my feelings, showing my emotions – I never have been. My mouth just won’t seem to form the words I wish to say and I have wanted to say this to you, Elisabeth, so many, many times. I suppose it was the fear of rejection. I can’t count the occasions I have cursed myself for my incurable reticence. But seeing you with your ex-husband . . . well, you’d better read it.’ He held out the letter.

‘Will you read it?’ she asked.

‘I know it by heart,’ he said. He put the letter back in his pocket. ‘I say that I love you not only for what you are and what you have achieved in life but for putting up with the thoughtless things I sometimes say and do. I say that I love you for the good things you have brought out in me, as you do with all those who know you, that you’ve made me feel a better person. When my wife died I had never felt such black despair, but you have drawn me out into the light. I say that I hoped that one day you could love me, but if not, then I wished you a happy life.’

‘Michael,’ she said, ‘I’ve loved you for so long.’

‘I think I’ve loved you longer,’ he said. ‘Ever since you shouted at me in the surgery when you first came to Barton.’

‘I didn’t shout,’ she sniffed. ‘I never shout.’

‘Well, when you ticked me off for being so pig-headed,’ he said good-humouredly.

He sat next to her, curled his arm around her shoulder and kissed her gently on the lips. ‘I think it is customary in these circumstances,’ he said, ‘to go down on one knee.’ He knelt before her and covered her hand gently with his own. ‘And to ask you, my dear, dear Elisabeth, will you marry me?’