01 Teacher, Teacher!

by Jack Sheffield

  “This is a time for a fresh new beginning,” she said, lightly touching a card with a picture of a jester on it. I was concerned that it said the words ‘The Fool’ but Seaside Gladys looked content that it was there.

  “You are at a crossroads but don’t hesitate any longer or else you may be disappointed.”

  She tapped the card entitled ‘The World’. It was inverted.

  “I see success but sometimes you fear it, you are unsure.”

  Her eyes studied the bright yellow picture of a sun and the final card entitled ‘Judgement’.

  “I see a good, positive life for you, Mr Sheffield, but you must reach out and take it,” she paused and looked at me carefully, “both in your work and in your personal life.”

  The candle flickered, my heart slowed and in the far distance I could hear the faint sounds of children laughing and shouting. Here in the dim light of the caravan, rushing time paused, thoughts were cleansed and decisions became less difficult.

  “Thank you, Gladys,” I said, getting up from the table. I sensed time was up, although I had not been asked to leave. “You’ve given me a lot to think about.”

  “You’re a good man,” said Seaside Gladys, taking my right hand in her hands and squeezing it. “I wish you a good life.”

  As I left the caravan, bright, sharp reality rushed at me from all sides. Sally looked at me inquisitively as she collected her Tupperware box of coins and ethnic shoulder bag and popped her head around the curtain to tell Seaside Gladys that fortune telling was over for the day.

  I guessed she already knew.

  Back in school, Vera was collecting the takings.

  “£463.28 so far, Mr Sheffield, and still counting. The best ever total for a Summer Fair,” she said as she stacked the silver and bronze coins in neat piles and rows.

  “We can have our library now, Jack,” said Anne, looking distinctly sunburned as she put five pounds’ worth of ten-pence pieces in a plastic bag.

  “How did you get on with Gipsy Rosy Lee?” asked Jo who was filling the kettle at the sink. “Did she see a pay rise for teachers in her crystal ball?”

  “It was, how would you say, revealing,” I said quietly.

  Vera gave me a sharp, curious look and then resumed her counting.

  There was a tap on the door. It was Beth.

  “Thanks for a lovely day, everybody, I’m sure it’s been successful.”

  Jo held up the teapot. “Would you like a cup of tea before you go?”

  Beth looked at her watch. “Sorry, I must rush, I’m meeting a friend outside the Theatre Royal in York in half an hour, but thanks anyway.”

  My heart sank and I remembered what Seaside Gladys had said about grasping the opportunity.

  I shot an anxious look towards Beth but, as ever, she was in a hurry and busy with the immediacy of her life.

  She looked at me and said, “She’s an old college friend, Jack. We shared a flat together many years ago and we’ve a lot to catch up on.”

  I wondered if Beth noticed the instant of relief in my expression before she left. I resolved to ask her out to dinner when we met again. With only a few weeks to go before the end of term I really would have to get a move on. There were important decisions to be made. I had decided to book a holiday gite in Brittany during the school summer holiday and I was waiting for the right moment to ask Beth if she wanted to join me.

  Through the window I noticed Sally helping Seaside Gladys out of the caravan. The power that seemed to exude from her when she was in the caravan appeared to have gone now and she just looked like a very old and frail lady casting long shadows in the late-afternoon sun. She stood by the wall of the car park and seemed to be searching for something in her large knitted bag.

  Sally popped her head round the door and gave the plastic box of money to Vera.

  “Jack, I’m taking Seaside Gladys round to Ruby’s house now but she wondered if she could have a quick word with you and Vera.”

  “Of course,” I said, “I want to thank her.”

  “With me as well?” said Vera in surprise. “Why me?”

  “I don’t know, Vera,” said Sally, shaking her head, “that’s all she said.”

  “Come on, Vera, let’s see what she’s got to say,” I said.

  “I’ll finish counting out the cash, Vera,” said Jo.

  As we walked outside, Seaside Gladys walked slowly towards us and her carved walking stick tapped on the tarmac surface of the car park.

  She stood patiently before Vera and gave her a small parcel, beautifully wrapped in lilac paper and tied with neat gold thread.

  Vera looked both embarrassed and surprised.

  “What’s this?” asked Vera.

  “A present for a true lady with a heart of gold,” said Seaside Gladys.

  “I don’t understand,” said Vera.

  The old gipsy turned to grip the railings and lowered herself gently on to the coping stone of the school wall. It seemed to take a great deal of effort. When her breathing steadied she put her hand on Vera’s arm.

  “Ruby has told me all about you and I have always wanted her to find confidence. She’s never had much of that. You’ve made her feel special and that’s a great gift.”

  Vera looked into her creased and weathered face, smiled and accepted the present.

  She appeared to be trying to find the right words.

  “I have an apology to make to you,” Vera said quietly but firmly. “I called what you do hocus-pocus. I had no right to do that.”

  “There are many things we don’t understand and sometimes that makes us afraid,” said Seaside Gladys. “Just have faith and follow your heart.”

  With that, she struggled to her feet and climbed into Sally’s car.

  Everyone waved as the old lady disappeared down the drive.

  Back in the office, Vera opened her parcel. It was a bottle of Old English Lavender Water made in Knaresborough, in the oldest chemist shop in England.

  She held it up, unscrewed the top and offered it to Jo.

  “It’s beautiful,” said Jo, sniffing the scent of lavender, “it’s different, not too obvious but it could really grow on you.”

  Vera looked for a long time at the bottle.

  “Yes,” she said, almost to herself, “just like Seaside Gladys.”

  Twenty

  The Accident

  Miss Maddison’s class visit to Brimham Rocks.

  Mr Sheffield was involved in a Road Traffic Accident.

  (A. Grainger, Acting Headmistress)

  Extract from the Ragley School Logbook: Tuesday 4 July 1978

  I

  barely saw the car that hit me. One minute everything was fine, the next my world was turned upside down in a tangle of metal and a screech of brakes.

  It was Tuesday 4 July and I had driven over to Brimham Rocks to spend the morning with Jo Maddison and her class. The weather was perfect and the children were excited when they saw the weird and wonderful shapes of the huge rocks carved out during the Ice Age some three hundred million years ago.

  Jo had asked Vera to go along and help her supervise the children. Vera was thrilled to be asked and had donned her stylish wide-brimmed straw hat with a lavender ribbon and had taken charge of the packed lunches. Six parents had volunteered to help and when I left them to return to school, Vera was giving precise instructions to each of them about the disposal of plastic bags and glass bottles.

  As it was such a beautiful day, I decided to take the quiet country lane from Brimham Rocks to the tiny village of Burnt Yates on the B6165 road. This took me on a scenic route home past Ripley Castle and on through Knaresborough. The road was narrow and winding and the hedgerows were so high it was impossible to see what might be round the next bend. I drove slowly and carefully and wound down my window to drink in the warm summer air. It was good to be alive in God’s own country on a day such as this.

  I meandered around a right-hand bend when suddenly I saw a white Lada 1200 four-door s
aloon hurtling towards me on the wrong side of the road. The young man behind the wheel hit his brakes and the back end of his car slewed sideways violently and hit the front offside of my car. It felt as though I was turning through a full circle in slow motion as my car mounted the nearside grassy bank and ploughed through the hedge. My head hit the side window and then there was an eerie silence before I lapsed into unconsciousness.

  Eventually, in an endless tunnel of dark grey mist, I heard a voice calling to me. Through blurred vision I made out the shape of a young policeman and I realized I was lying on a bed in the back of an ambulance.

  “What’s your name?” he yelled in my face.

  I tried to speak but I couldn’t breathe. A stiff collar had been buckled securely around my neck by the ambulance team. I pointed feverishly to the inside pocket of my tweed jacket where my wallet contained all my personal details.

  “Wall…et,” I mumbled.

  “Wally?” said the eager young policeman, scribbling in his notebook. “Wally what?” he yelled and stood up as if he intended to leave me to suffocate. I was desperate.

  “No…oh, No…oh, don’t,” I cried, trying to shake my head.

  “Node, is that it?” he shouted. “Wally Node? Don’t worry, Mr Node, you’re gonna be all right.” He wrote again in his little black notebook and stepped out of the back of the ambulance.

  I fumbled with numb fingers at the neck support, knowing that I was about to pass out any moment. In the nick of time, the ambulance man came in and realized the cause of my distress.

  “Calm down,” he said quietly and loosened the neck support. I sucked sweet oxygen into my lungs.

  “What’s his name?” he shouted to the policeman.

  “Wally Node,” came the authoritative reply.

  I shook my head vigorously.

  “Just keep still, Wally,” said the kindly ambulance man. “We’re taking you to the hospital in Harrogate. Try to relax and we’ll soon have you right.”

  And so it was that on that beautiful sunny day in July 1978, a road traffic accident patient by the name of Wally Node was admitted to the Accident and Emergency Department of Harrogate Hospital.

  Back in school Anne Grainger was taking control.

  Anne telephoned the ward sister at the hospital and asked for an update on my condition and checked on visiting times. Then she contacted my mother, reassured her that all would be well and dispatched her husband, John, to Leeds to collect her and her sister, May. The secretary at the Education Office in Northallerton was next and she promised Miss Barrington-Huntley would be informed and took Anne’s home number.

  The School Governors, Joseph Evans, Stan Coe and Albert Jenkins, were summoned to meet in school the following morning. Miss Flint’s availability was confirmed to take over my class and a letter to parents was dictated to Vera the Secretary. Jo Maddison, Sally Pringle and Valerie Flint agreed to stay behind after school to discuss the implications for the following week’s Centenary Day. All this was achieved with the calmness and professionalism of a deputy headmistress at the peak of her powers.

  ♦

  Someone was holding my hand. It was a nurse.

  “We’re just taking you for an X-ray, Jack. Just lie still,” said a voice.

  I glanced down and wondered where my clothes were and why I was wearing a white smock.

  Then it occurred to me. She had called me Jack. I was no longer Wally Node. Presumably, someone had the good sense to check my wallet.

  “What happened?” I asked. “What about the other driver? How is he?”

  “Nothing to worry about, Jack. The doctor will explain everything to you soon.”

  As we swept along the never-ending corridor, above my head the bright fluorescent lights flickered by with the metronome regularity of telegraph poles outside the window of a train.

  There were too many questions and not enough answers so I closed my eyes and slept.

  I knew I was dreaming. The sky was turning, fields swept by, the hedgerow was upside down and two people were staring down at me. They both looked like my mother.

  “Jack, it’s me. How are you?”

  One of the two women was gently pushing my hair out of my eyes.

  Margaret sat down on the bed whilst her sister stood alongside, holding her hand.

  Slowly my eyes focused.

  “Mam, it’s you.”

  The emotion was too much for me and I felt a tear running down my cheek.

  I remembered my mother’s old adage.

  “Sorry, Mam,” I mumbled, “boys don’t cry.”

  She squeezed my hand.

  “But men do,” she whispered and wiped the tear from my eye. “Now just rest and everything will be fine.”

  The next morning bright sunlight lanced across my eyelids and I awoke. My headache had gone and, apart from a bandage wrapped around my forehead, I seemed to be in good shape. There were no broken bones, only stiffness in some of my joints.

  A nurse arrived at the side of my bed.

  “So, how are you feeling now, Jack?” she asked.

  “Fine,” I replied, “just a little confused.”

  “You’ve had a bang on your head, Jack,” she explained, “so we needed to keep an eye on you overnight and probably tonight as well. The doctor will call in to see you later.”

  “I remember my mother being here,” I said. “I spoke to her.”

  “She’s coming back with her sister this afternoon. You’ve had lots of people ringing up to see how you are. Some of them will be coming during visiting hours.”

  I managed to sit up in bed to eat a little porridge and drink some tea. After that, I felt much better and it was a relief to see the young policeman again. I half expected him to address me as ‘Wally’ but he seemed to be well briefed. He took a statement and told me that the driver of the other car had just overtaken another vehicle on the bend. The driver and passenger of that vehicle had confirmed he was driving recklessly and that, in spite of my evasive action, he had caused the crash. The prints of my tyre tracks on the nearside grass verge were added proof of this.

  “Your car’s been taken to Pratt’s Garage in Ragley, Mr Sheffield,” said the constable. “The mechanic said he’d make it good as new.”

  Reassured that my pride and joy was in safe hands, I sank back on the pillow.

  When the policeman had gone, I noticed the routine of hospital life going on around me. Cleaners came in and mopped the floors. Nurses took my temperature and blood pressure and then recorded their results on a clipboard hung over the metal rail at the foot of my bed. Opposite me a patient by the name of Harry Bartholomew was staring forlornly at the sign above his bed that said ‘Nil by Mouth’.

  “What are you in for?” I asked.

  “Hernia,” came the despondent reply.

  “You OK?” I added cheerfully.

  “No,” said Harry, “I’m not allowed to laugh.”

  “Why not?” I asked.

  “Stitches,” mumbled Harry.

  A long pause ensued. This was to be the pattern of our conversations for the next twenty-four hours.

  “What do you do for a living?” I asked, eager to establish support.

  “I’m a professional comedian,” said Harry.

  Only by stuffing the corner of the pillow into my mouth did I avoid laughing.

  “So you won’t be practising your act on this lot then?” I added.

  Around us the other members of the ‘Nil by Mouth’ club groaned, coughed and mumbled, and doctors with serious faces examined them, shook their heads and walked slowly away.

  “Too bloody right, mate,” he grumbled.

  Suddenly a doctor appeared and pulled the curtain around the curved rail above my bed. His white coat looked as new as the stethoscope hanging around his neck. He looked so young, barely old enough to take his driving test, but he spoke with wisdom beyond his apparent years.

  “We intend to keep you in for observation for one more night, Mr Sheffield. You
took quite a blow to the side of your head. We’ll give you something for the pain, change the dressings and make sure everything has settled down before you go back home. I’ll be back to check on you tomorrow.”

  Time passed slowly as the afternoon dragged on. I stared through the open doors of the ward at the posters on the notice board in the corridor. The two largest posters had been placed side by side. One was a health education poster and the other was advertising fund raising for the new scanner appeal. It stated where tickets could be purchased. If you read only the bold print at the top of each poster from left to right, it said, ‘Venereal Disease – We Got Ours At The Co-op’. I pointed this out to Harry who laughed out loud and then groaned in pain.

  Visiting time was 3.00 p.m. to 8.00 p.m. and I wondered who might visit. John Grainger was the first to arrive. He had brought Margaret and May with him and they fussed around, plumping my pillows and force-feeding me with grapes while John unpacked a carrier bag of Get Well cards.

  Aunt May was her usual tactful self. She pointed at my surgical smock.

  “Y’look a wee sissy, Jack, in that skirt,” said May.

  John stepped in quickly with his news.

  “Jack, Anne sends her love and said every child in the school has made a card for you.” He looked down at a note written in Anne’s flowing handwriting. “She says be sure to read the ones in Miss Maddison’s class, particularly, Sarah and Jimmy.”

  He tipped the cards out. The one on top was from Anita in my class. It read predictably, “Your the best teecher in the wurld.”

  Sarah’s card had a beautiful drawing on the front of a skinny man with huge glasses and big feet. He was standing next to a bright green car that had been squashed flat. Six-year-old Sarah Louise Tait was one of our very best storytellers and she had a wonderful vocabulary for one so young. Sarah had written, “This morning Miss Maddison and our class took assembly. It was about the creation of the world. It took a long time, nearly ten minutes. Adam and Eve were supposed to hold hands. Eve wanted to but Adam didn’t. At the end Mrs Grainger said ‘onbe-half’. She always says ‘onbe-half’. I don’t know why she says ‘onbe-half’. I miss you because if you are on the front row the little ones can play with your laces and you pretend not to notice. You have a tall smile. On Saturday I saw you in Asda next to the cornflakes in shorts. My mummy says you are older than you look.”