Head Start

by Judith Cutler

  Dawes jumped in again. ‘So you’d say that overall you’re keener on safety and security than on the actual education of our children. Even though your vigilance – your vigilantism – has been excessive.’

  Ah, ha! Parking! ‘Mr Dawes, have you ever seen the effect a fatal traffic accident outside their school has on children’s ability to learn? When one of their classmates was run over before their very eyes? Why, Mr Morris and his granddaughter had a lucky escape earlier this week.’ Slowly, reluctantly Richard nodded as I held his eye. ‘Which is why I’ve already asked Highways to repaint the yellow zigzag lines, which were very badly faded, as part of their duty of care. Next week, police community support officers should be in attendance at the start and end of the school day.’

  ‘You’ve been very busy.’ It didn’t sound like praise.

  ‘You appointed me to implement all Ofsted’s many recommendations. But I’d say I’m less than halfway down the first page so far.’

  ‘You must have burnt the midnight oil to achieve all this,’ Mrs Walker said approvingly. She looked around almost challengingly.

  ‘But it was not Miss Cowan’s oil that she was burning,’ said a kind-faced, white-haired woman whose name completely eluded me. ‘It was the school’s. The lights have been on all hours – before six in the morning, well after eight some nights. Why has Miss Cowan not been working in her own home?’

  Mrs Walker smiled again. ‘I think she just told us that she’s had no central heating oil.’

  ‘In other words, she’s found it more convenient to use our oil and our electricity.’ Clearly her face belied her personality. At last her name came to me. Mrs Tibbs, that’s right.

  Was this what this meeting was all about? ‘Yes,’ I agreed, ‘and your computer and printer, not to mention accessing the paper files now kept under lock and key in my office. I’d be working there now were it not for this meeting.’

  ‘Mrs Gough never felt she had to play the martyr, that’s all I can say.’

  So I was playing the martyr, was I? Surely someone would pick her up on that?

  ‘That’s true. And she was a fine woman: with us for fifteen years.’

  ‘Yes,’ someone agreed, ‘if she’d been here a few years longer she’d almost have been one of us.’

  Almost. I froze inside.

  ‘Can you explain why you hung washing all over your house the other evening?’ asked Mrs Tibbs

  ‘Washing?’ repeated Dawes, in hostile disbelief. Others seemed to snigger at the thought.

  ‘It all looked rather jolly, actually,’ I said. ‘What did we have? Arsenal, two. Chelsea, one. Two different Manchester United strips. Manchester City. Let’s not forget Liverpool. Wasn’t there a Lionel Messi shirt, too? And a Ronaldo. If you want to check, they’re all in a black sack hanging in the cycle shed.’ I’d been too flippant; even Mrs Walker was frowning. ‘I’m afraid I have no explanation,’ I added much more soberly. ‘But I have some background information for you. As part of my effort to clear one of the dangerously overfull stockrooms, I came upon about a dozen football shirts, all filthy, many mildewed, most torn. So I tried to dispose of them in the village hall charity bin for rags.’ I gave a brief explanation of what happened next. There was very little reaction. ‘Perhaps in my desire to rid the school of a health hazard I was overhasty. I should have written to all parents asking them to claim them.’

  ‘You say they’re in the cycle shed? Why on earth—?’ This from my ally, Richard, almost squeaking in disbelief.

  ‘Because whoever stuck them to the window sills and walls soaked them first so they could freeze in place. So when I removed them, they were wet as well as smelly. And I didn’t want to try putting them in the charity bin until they were dry or they’d have ruined anything else in it. Why don’t I show you,’ I added, ‘the state of those stockrooms? Lost in the depths of one of them are some music stands I promised the peripatetic string teacher I’d find for him – and he comes in on Tuesday, so I don’t have much time. I’ve asked Tom Mason to get together a working party to deal with the sports stockroom – tapping into his sports expertise.’ My smile was horribly ingratiating. I changed it immediately to one of sympathy. ‘What a tragedy for the man that he had to give up his tennis career.’

  ‘Oh, he’s been spinning you that yarn, has he?’ Brian Dawes did not sound sympathetic.

  ‘He’s a very good teacher,’ I said, perversely springing to his defence. ‘The task he set his class during the snow activities was both testing and fun.’

  ‘Ah. The snow.’ Two very meaningful syllables, oozing judgement. ‘At least you stayed open.’

  ‘Of course. Even without your advice I’d have tried to, Mr Dawes. Helen is doing a review of our activities to be circulated to us all on Tuesday. Would you like to be copied in?’ It was clear I meant everyone in the room. There was a general nodding of heads.

  ‘Very well. I understand your preoccupation with dealing with physical problems. But it is surely time now to address yourself to what you are paid to do. Teaching.’

  Wrong: I had been appointed to manage the school, with just a few hours in the classroom. But just for now I’d keep mum in the face of what was surely a rhetorical question.

  ‘A school rises or falls by its results. Mrs Gough was a very reliable teacher. And, of course, her class has only been taught by some supply woman for a whole term. We need improved SATs grades, Miss Cowan, and better eleven-plus passes. Forget spring-cleaning. The three Rs. That’s what you should be addressing.’

  I thought of Mr Gradgrind and his Facts. I was to be his Mr M’Choakumchild, was I? Who Bitzer, who Sissy Jupe? I was tempted to counter by reminding him that people mutht be amuthed, but thought better of it. What I did say, cautiously but firmly, was, ‘One of my objectives in the classroom and in the wider school is to reduce gender bias. During one of the snow exercises, a girl showed real engineering skill, only for the boys to belittle what she’d done – because she was just a girl. One fairy step, to my mind, is to avoid labelling people with their marital status. As you know, I have been married, but no longer am. So I prefer the title Ms, please, when you speak to me face to face or refer to me in front of the children. I’m sure you will understand.’ I looked each in the eye. Firmly. Not pleading.

  The murmurs sounded affirmative but embarrassed. Buoyed, I took the initiative. ‘Are there any other matters you wished to raise? In that case, may I simply assure you that every aspect of school life will continue to receive all my attention.’

  Mrs Walked smiled. ‘We’re not paying for your soul, Ms Cowan. You’re entitled to your own life too.’

  ‘Time for that when everything’s running as we all want it,’ I said. ‘Though I do admit there’s work to be done in the house.’

  ‘Oil apart, how are you settling in …?’

  Just as I thought the meeting was dwindling to a close, Dawes took a text and, raising his eyebrows, turned to me again. Or was it turned on me? ‘You were arrested last night. Police officers dragged you from the school! What the hell was that about? Believe me, this school doesn’t need that sort of publicity.’

  What little worm had turned on me now?

  ‘You’ve been misinformed,’ I said coolly. ‘Someone thought that the lights burning in the school indicated that there must have been a break-in. The police came in response to their call, and established that I was there entirely legitimately.’ I was tempted to throw the stolen electricity into the mix, but refrained. ‘When they heard about the shirt business, they were so anxious about my safety they kindly escorted me to my house.’

  He muttered something under his breath. Perhaps he had overplayed his hand; perhaps, on the other hand, judging by the expressions on some faces, he hadn’t.

  When there was no more baiting to be done he declared the meeting closed. The governors drifted away, without any inspection of the stockrooms or anything else for that matter. Mark Stephens, the exhausted-looking vicar, lingered: ‘I don’t s
uppose that you’re a churchgoer, Ms Cowan? Sadly very few of the parents are.’ He trailed after the others, as if he’d answered his own question.

  What had they all got out of the meeting? Dawes had done what I should imagine was his daily dose of bullying; Felicity Walker had been supportive; Toby, though far from friendly, had appeared to accept my explanation of the shirt incident; I feared Mrs Tibbs and I might never exchange Christmas cards; Richard – how far could I rely on him? What about the vicar, who, apart from his brief attempt at conversation, had been entirely silent and disengaged for the whole session?

  There was still a great deal of the morning left. I was far too well dressed to indulge in so-called spring-cleaning. But I had promised Fred that he would have music stands. I had better head home and change. First, however, I called the letting agent about the state of the loft insulation. He sounded genuinely surprised, so surprised he agreed to pay for any work PC Davies’s nephew had to do.

  Even as I put key B in the lock, I acknowledged that the governors had, of course, been right – it was no part of my job description, extensive though it was, to clean out other people’s stockroom mess. Not that the Open the Book teams dressing-up clothes were mess. Not now I realised what they were. Perhaps the rather flimsy scenery was theirs too – I pulled out a night sky with a giant star, a roll of sturdy brown paper that I recognised as the woman of Samaria’s well and a wooden cross that Jesus, whatever the gender of the actor, would have found a burden. There was also a paper carrier bag containing some enormously heavy nails and a crown of thorns.

  I found myself putting these to one side with a respect bordering on reverence.

  Next was a box crammed with old paperback textbooks. There was evidence of mice. I’d have to get some traps or poison. Anything I got would have to be absolutely childproof of course, or there’d rightly be a scandal of gargantuan proportions. Perhaps a proper pest control team would be safer – but would the budget run to that? Meanwhile, as soon as I had reached the gaggle of music stands, lurking like lopsided cranes behind another box of books, I would give up for the day. There! They were as hard to disentangle as a handful of wire coat hangers at the back of a wardrobe, and my struggle threatened to bring down other bulging boxes, stacked six high, on my head. At last I had retrieved all but one stand; I would abandon that to its fate. Putting back the OTB items as far out of rodent reach as possible, I regarded the two boxes of books with distaste. They were far too heavy for me to carry, and if I tried to drag them across the playground to the recycling bin, almost certainly the old cardboard would disintegrate. I could see a whole set of separate treks to the recycling bin coming up. First, though, I’d clean up the music stands – I could scrub them in one of the loos next to the stockroom. Out of long habit, I chose the girls’, of course. How could it possibly have scared a child so much she’d rather wet her pants? There were only two cubicles, the loos the right size for a reception class child. Outside was a tiny sink and full-size hand-dryer. Everything was clean enough, though my efforts in the sink got water all over the floor, so I swabbed up the worst of the water with loo paper, and then resorted to the hand-dryer to deal with the puddles. It was extremely loud. Scarily loud? Perhaps the unhappy children preferred the paper towels in the other loos.

  Now what?

  Those boxes of books.

  What I really needed was a wheelbarrow, wasn’t it? Or better still a chain of little humans one morning, passing two books at a time till all were safely stowed away.

  Which sounded disconcertingly like a line from a long-forgotten harvest hymn. Perhaps I ought to show my face in church tomorrow. From a distance it looked very impressive in a four-square solid way, with a stubby crenellated tower – Saxon or Norman, perhaps.

  Meanwhile, I locked the books away.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  ‘Church? Of course you’ve got to go to church,’ Pat declared, his accent stronger than ever over the phone. ‘This is a village you’re living in, woman. A village with villagers. And villagers have expectations. Like it or not, you’re heading one of the main institutions – the church, the pub and the school. And if you don’t like it, you must just lump it. That’s the way it is. What time’s the service?’

  ‘No idea.’

  ‘Have they got a website? No? Parish mag? No, you wouldn’t have one of them. They’ll have a noticeboard. It’s a nice crisp afternoon: take yourself for a walk up there. Then you’ll have an appetite for your supper. I bet you’ve not even tried out the cooker!’

  ‘Not yet. How’s your running in this weather?’

  ‘Treadmill at the gym, of course. Mile on bloody mile. Maybe I’m really a sprint man …’

  Actually, it was good to be out and about, though the steep lane to the church, some two hundred yards from the main village, presented a bit of a challenge, even with my poles and heavy boots. I wondered how many of the people who’d confronted me this morning would be able to manage it. As Pat had predicted, there was a noticeboard, still with a drift of snow in the lower corners, and condensation obscuring the notices behind the heavy wood and glass doors. As far as I could work out, tomorrow’s service was at eight in the morning, which would effectively scupper my one lie-in of the week. Still, as Pat would no doubt observe, needs must.

  What Pat would have said when turning on two red rings on the hob blacked out the whole house I wasn’t sure. In any case, I said enough on my own account. But this must be something for the letting agent to fix. I’d invite him to pay for the extra padlocks for the oil tanks too, but something told me I might end up forking out for them. Meanwhile, as I sorted out the fuse board, I resigned myself to microwaving yet another prepared meal.

  The lane to the church was like a skating rink next morning – with the scary bonus of a gradient, of course. There was no sign of any other pedestrians making their unsteady way up, nor even of any of the 4x4s that crowded School Road that might have tackled it. Yet, when I reached the gate, clutching at it like an inexperienced swimmer grabbing the rail at the deep end, there was a light on, though the snow was quite virginal on what I assumed was the path. There was, however, a mosaic of footprints by the porch. People had obviously found an alternative route.

  Not many people. The vicar, Mark Stephens, was there, of course, wearing a dramatic but sensible clerical black cloak to cover all his other garments. Three other people, two men and a woman, none of whom I’d ever met and all in their sixties or seventies, were also swathed to the eyebrows, with a tiny paraffin heater giving off rather more fumes than heat. The service was Holy Communion, using the old Prayer Book words, which I liked – though since I’d never been christened, let alone confirmed, I couldn’t join the others at the altar rail.

  Mark declared that as the boiler was still not working he would spare us a sermon, and since there were no hymns either, we were soon released.

  It turned out that the boiler was so old a vital part was proving almost impossible to replace. Before I knew it, words were coming out of my mouth. ‘Until the weather improves, wouldn’t it be possible to hold services in the village hall?’

  The men exchanged glances. Mark said, ‘There’s a block booking for every Sunday morning. Happy Clappers.’ He sounded like an ecclesiastical Eeyore.

  ‘Ah.’ It didn’t sound as if a bit of ecumenical cross fertilisation was likely. ‘What about the school hall, then? I’m sure there’s some sort of rental rate I’ve not yet discovered, but I’m sure it won’t be high. You’re a governor, Mark – would you know?’

  He blinked. Had I committed lèse majesté by using his first name? There was what you might call a resounding silence all round in fact. Clearly I hadn’t yet got the measure of Wrayford life.

  I changed the subject quite violently. ‘Do I gather that you didn’t have to walk up the lane? If there’s another route, I’d be really grateful if you could tell me.’

  ‘It’s across a farmyard. And the dog needs to know you.’ Mark shook out his cloak to re
veal a triangular tear, not very well mended.

  ‘Ah. So in weather like this …’

  ‘The farmer didn’t have time to clear the lane this time.’

  ‘For a pedestrian track it’s only a matter of spreading that sand and salt,’ I said, pointing to a yellow plastic council hopper. ‘I suppose the church doesn’t run to a spade and a wheelbarrow?’

  ‘Don? This is Don Talbot, the churchwarden,’ Mark added quickly. ‘And this is Giles Membury.’

  The name might have come from Hardy, mightn’t it? Giles shook my hand, as did Don, though with less enthusiasm, I thought.

  ‘And this is Meg, who is our rock.’

  Meg was Mrs Tibbs’s age, with an equally round smiling face. But her smile deepened as she shook my hand. ‘Are you thinking what I’m thinking, Jane? A bit of do-it-yourself snow clearing?’

  I thought quickly – none of them might be as fit as they looked and I didn’t want a cardiac arrest laid at my door. ‘Only a tiny path – not enough for a car.’

  Suddenly I was what I liked most – part of a willing group. It turned out that Giles had recently had a triple by-pass and was excused duties, and Mark had to go and take another service, but together the three of us put to shame, as Meg put it, the young men of the village. ‘Not that they have time to do all that much, I suppose – they work such long hours and spend their weekends ferrying their children to this, that and the other. That’s why we’ve no football or cricket teams any more, I suppose. And I fear that if you want any volunteers for school activities you’ll get not parents but grandparents helping you. Heigh-ho – we’ve done our bit, anyway,’ she added with pride, surveying a slightly wavering but well-sanded pathway down the hill.

  Don trundled the wheelbarrow back up the hill to stow it wherever it lived, but only after Meg had made him promise to drop into her cottage for a cup of coffee. Tucking her arm in mine, she made it clear that I was going too. Who was I to argue? Though I might have queried the term cottage: her home was three or four times the size of mine, set in what I could only describe as grounds. There was a well-maintained thatched roof, a front patio swept clean so that it was easier to reach a battery of bird feeders and a front door with two locks. It was guarded by a serious-looking burglar alarm, which she killed while I eased off my boots.