Meanwhile Jo Hunter was catching up with Tom on the news of her class. ‘So, how’s it going?’ she asked.
‘Fine,’ said Tom. ‘I’m getting to know them and they’re definitely a bright bunch. In fact, keeping up with them with the new technology is a challenge. Some of them have got computers at home now and use them most days.’
‘That’s what I’m finding,’ said Jo.
They discussed the special needs of the children and then Tom suddenly changed the subject. ‘I’m told that’s Laura, Beth’s sister.’
‘Yes, she’s got a good job in London at Liberty, the fashion house, but she’s doing some work at their branch in York at present. She’s renting a flat there for a few months.’
‘And she’s not wearing a ring,’ said Tom.
Jo looked up at him, slightly puzzled. ‘Yes, she’s single at the moment I think.’
Tom stood quietly, his jawline firm with the expectation of the moment and his piercing blue eyes sharp with anticipation.
We all toasted Joseph’s health, then Vera walked in with a wonderful birthday cake for him. It was while we were eating a slice and drinking fine ground coffee that Beth finally introduced Tom to her sister.
‘Laura,’ said Beth, ‘this is Tom – Tom Dalton, the new teacher at Ragley.’
‘Hello, Tom,’ said Laura with no great enthusiasm. She looked preoccupied.
I watched the meeting from a distance. Laura appeared indifferent, polite but not interested. Her thoughts were clearly elsewhere.
On Monday lunchtime we were back in the staff-room. ‘They’ve sorted out the Sooty problem,’ said Sally as she glanced through Tom’s Daily Mail.
‘Really?’ asked Anne. ‘How have they done that?’
‘Apparently they’ve changed the scripts so that Soo is no longer submissive,’ said Sally, ‘and she’s been taken out of the kitchen.’
‘I should think so,’ said Vera.
‘So what’s she doing now?’ I asked.
Sally scanned the text under the photograph of the pair of furry glove puppets. ‘Well, Soo’s now reading motorcycle manuals and driving an excavator.’
Tom opened his mouth to say something and I shot him a warning glance. He settled back.
It was a new world and George Orwell didn’t get a look-in.
Chapter Twelve
Raining in My Heart
Members of the Parent Teacher Association prepared the hall for tomorrow evening’s ‘PTA 50s Disco’.
Extract from the Ragley School Logbook: Friday, 3 February 1984
AS I DROVE up Ragley High Street, out of the darkness of a bitter winter morning light streamed from Nora’s Coffee Shop. She was admiring a large poster in the window. It read:
RAGLEY SCHOOL PTA 50s EVENING
in the School Hall
7.30 p.m.
on Saturday 4th February 1984
Frothy Coffee & Cakes (Supplied by Nora’s Coffee Shop)
50s Bring & Buy Stall
Clint Ramsbottom’s Disco Experience
Tribute to Buddy Holly (featuring Troy Phoenix & the Whalers)
Tickets 50p from the school & local shops
The Ragley Parent Teacher Association, led by the indefatigable chair of the committee, Staff Nurse Sue Phillips, had decided to arrange a fundraising evening with a fifties theme. The date selected was the Saturday following the twenty-fifth anniversary of the day when, on 3 February 1959, Buddy Holly had died in the small plane he had chartered to take him to the next stop on his tour. Excitement in the village had been building for the past two weeks. Dusty suitcases were being pulled down from attics and searched for fifties memorabilia, and Clint Ramsbottom had visited Shady Stevo’s market stall to add to his record collection. It seemed that everyone in the village had a story to tell about life in the 1950s – not least in Nora’s Coffee Shop.
‘Well, ah’ve got m’short pink skirt wi’ a net petticoat an’ m’bobby socks, so ah’m ready f’tomorrow night,’ said Dorothy.
‘That sounds all wight, Dowothy,’ said Nora, ‘an’ ah’ve got that lovely cotton pwint dwess wi’ a flowal design from that Hey Pwesto catalogue.’
‘Twenty-five years – who’d ’ave thought it?’ said Dorothy. ‘Ah were only a baby.’
‘It were wight sad, Dowothy,’ said Nora, ‘when ’e died in that plane cwash … weally upsettin’.’
Dorothy looked at the tired collection of buns and pastries. ‘An’ what are we taking?’ she asked.
Nora was never one to miss an opportunity. ‘Well, we can get shut o’ them wock cakes fowwa staht.’
‘We’ll need t’get set up in t’school in good time,’ said Dorothy.
Nora nodded. ‘Mr Sheffield said he’d come wound t’collect all t’coffee an’ cakes.’
‘There’ll be music,’ said Dorothy.
‘Ah love wock an’ woll,’ said Nora.
‘An’ me an’ Malcolm’ll be dancin’.’
Nora looked at the poster again. ‘Clint Wamsbottom’s Disco Expewience,’ she said, ‘an’ that Twoy Phoenix – ’e sounds jus’ like Buddy ’Olly so long as y’don’t look at ’im.’
‘Well, ah love that “Heartbeat” on t’juke-box,’ said Dorothy. ‘What’s your favourite, Nora?’
Nora thought back to her teenage days. ‘“Waining in My ’aht”,’ she said without hesitation. However, Nora remembered that song for different reasons and she smiled at the memory.
When I arrived at school Ruby was knocking icicles from the eaves of the school entrance with a yard broom.
‘We don’t want ’em fallin’ on t’kiddies’ ’eads, Mr Sheffield,’ she said.
‘Thank you, Ruby,’ I said, ‘that’s really thoughtful.’ I looked at this sturdy Yorkshirewoman and sensed she was working extra hard to dull the pain of heartache. In my class, her daughter Hazel seemed to have recovered quickly with the resilience of youth. All the staff had kept an eye on the little girl, but she appeared to be her old enthusiastic self. It seemed that in Ruby’s case it would take longer.
‘An’ t’boiler’s goin’ at full blast,’ she said. Her eyes were red from recent tears.
‘Ruby,’ I said quietly, ‘come inside for a cup of tea.’
She paused and reknotted her headscarf. ‘Thank you, Mr Sheffield, ah will.’
When the bell rang for the start of morning school, she was still in the office, sharing her thoughts with Vera.
Morning assembly turned out to be a lively event and featured Sally’s orchestra, comprising a few children from each class playing Indian bells, chime bars, a huge wooden xylophone, castanets, triangles, tambourines, recorders, drums and cymbals. Sally propped her Okki-Tokki-Unga songbook on her music stand and opened it to number 25, ‘Do Your Ears Hang Low?’, and began to strum the chords on her guitar while the children sang:
Do your ears hang low?
Do they wobble to and fro?
Can you tie them in a knot?
Can you tie them in a bow?
Can you toss them over your shoulder
Like a regimental soldier?
Do your ears hang low?
This was accompanied by large, exaggerated actions featuring the little ones in Anne’s class. The makeshift orchestra proved to be very noisy and enthusiastic, with little Billy Ricketts beating a drum as if his life depended on it.
Joseph was making his usual Friday-morning appearance and after assembly he spent half an hour in Class 3. This week’s Bible studies theme concerned the Creation. All seemed to be going well until eight-year-old Ryan Halfpenny asked a question.
‘Did Adam an’ Eve ’ave any clothes, Mr Evans?’
‘Well, er, no – they wouldn’t have had any clothes,’ said Joseph hesitantly, wondering where this conversation might lead.
‘Ah don’t s’ppose they would ’ave minded,’ said Ryan with an innocent smile.
Joseph was puzzled. ‘And why is that?’ he asked.
‘’Cause mirrors ’adn’t been invented,’ sa
id Ryan with a finality that brooked no argument.
At the end of the lesson Joseph collected in the children’s ‘Faiths of the World’ topic folders. During morning break he was reading Barry Ollerenshaw’s work. Under a wonderful picture of a mosque Barry had written, ‘A mosque is a bit like a church but it’s a bit different because the roof is doomed.’ Joseph chuckled to himself, but with true Christian spirit he corrected the spelling.
At morning break when I walked into the office Vera handed me the telephone. ‘It’s Mrs Sheffield,’ she said and set off for the staff-room.
‘Good timing, Beth,’ I said, ‘exactly half past ten.’
‘Yes, it’s handy knowing your timetable,’ she replied.
‘So what are you and John doing?’ I asked.
‘We’re meeting Laura for lunch, but before that I’m calling in to the bank to discuss that high-interest cheque account they’re advertising. The drawback is they want a minimum balance of two thousand pounds in the account.’
‘Way beyond a teacher’s salary,’ I said.
‘Still worth a try, Jack,’ said the financially aware Beth.
It occurred to me that my wife would have made a good accountant. Balance sheets left me cold. ‘Fine, good luck,’ I said.
‘Oh yes, and Laura will be coming to the dance. Bye.’
I replaced the receiver and remembered Laura and the brief time we had spent together. Now our relationship was one of fleeting friendship and the distance of unfulfilment. For her perhaps it had ended as quickly as it had begun, like icicles in spring sunshine. Those days had long since passed … it was over.
When I walked into the staff-room Sally was reading out an article from Tom’s Daily Mail and shaking her head in dismay. Billy Jean King, one of the most successful women in world tennis, had lost over £1 million in advertising deals after revealing her relationship with her personal secretary – a woman!
‘We’re living in the Dark Ages,’ grumbled Sally and everyone nodded, but significantly Joseph and Vera said nothing.
Across the High Street Ruby’s mother had a hair appointment at Diane’s Hair Salon and Natasha Smith was pushing her grandmother’s wheelchair. Every shop-owner had cleared the snow from the pavement in front of their shop and Deke Ramsbottom had used a few barrowloads of council grit to make it safe for foot traffic.
Coming out of the General Stores was a portly, cheerful man with a bag of shopping. ‘Who’s that, Grandma?’ asked Natasha.
‘George Dainty,’ said Agnes.
‘’E were at m’dad’s fun’ral,’ said Natasha.
‘That’s reight, luv – ’e used t’know y’mam a long time back.’
Natasha, curiosity aroused, pressed on. ‘When was that?’
‘Well … ah recall ’e tried t’court y’mam that day she were May Queen. ’E were seventeen an’ y’mam were sixteen.’
Natasha parked the wheelchair and helped Agnes out of it and into the welcome warmth of the shop. ‘An’ what ’appened, Grandma?’
‘Some things are best left unsaid,’ said Agnes mysteriously and disappeared into the salon for her weekly morning of tea, pampering and comfort.
In my class after break the children were busy with their mathematics lesson. Charlotte Ackroyd came up with a novel answer to the question ‘How do you change centimetres to metres?’ Charlotte had written ‘Just take out the centi’ and, not for the first time, it occurred to me that a child’s version of the so-called right answer was often better than mine.
Meanwhile, up the Morton Road, Petula Dudley-Palmer stared out of her state-of-the-art conservatory and felt that familiar sense of loneliness. As usual, Geoffrey had left early for work after complaining he couldn’t find matching cufflinks and she had driven Elisabeth Amelia into York to the prestigious Time School for Girls and dropped off Victoria Alice outside the school gate in Ragley. By mid-afternoon the day had begun to drag and she picked up the Radio Times.
It was at this time each day that she wondered about her life. On occasions, she recalled a time when a sausage roll was not served on a small china plate accompanied by a regulation paper napkin. Crusts had never been removed from a loaf and cucumber sandwiches weren’t necessarily triangular. She knew there must have been a time when she had stood at a crossroads in her life and taken the wrong turning. As she sipped her coffee, the conclusion was always the same – it was the day she had met Geoffrey.
Petula remembered a long-ago time in Manchester when she had collected empty pop bottles from the local tip and returned them to the corner shop at three old pence on each bottle. Then she would go with her friends to the Saturday-morning cinema and play in the local park on the way home. She wondered what had happened to them all and why she was always unhappy. In the Radio Times the Star Movie, A Woman Rebels, on BBC1 at 2.20 p.m. caught her eye. Katharine Hepburn was playing the part of a crusader for women’s rights in Victorian England. It was the perfect accompaniment to a mug of coffee and a thickly sliced cheese sandwich … with crusts intact.
During afternoon school we worked on our Weather project, during which the busy, intense and extremely bright Lee Dodsworth put up his hand and pointed to his reference book. ‘Mr Sheffield, it says here that the Antarctic holds about ninety per cent of the world’s ice – so what happens if it melts?’
The follow-up discussion was fascinating as we considered the implications of sea levels rising, the possible flooding of London and how we could prevent it. During my training I had been told never to underestimate children and at the end of the school day I wished we could have sent a recording to the world’s leaders.
Later, as darkness descended on Ragley village, members of the PTA plus a few mothers came in to prepare the school hall for tomorrow’s dance. When I walked in with a box of pins and a pin-pusher, Margery Ackroyd was in conversation with Connie Crapper and Freda Fazackerly. ‘’E’s got that look,’ said Margery knowingly. Connie and Freda nodded in acknowledgement. ‘An’ lovely shoulders – y’know, real manly.’
‘Ah never ’ad teachers like ’im when ah were at school,’ said Connie wistfully.
‘An’ ’e’s single by all accounts,’ added Margery.
‘Well, ah wouldn’t kick ’im out o’ bed,’ said Freda.
They all laughed and I followed their gaze. Tom Dalton, jacket off and sleeves rolled up, was carrying a stage block effortlessly to the far corner of the hall. I coughed politely and, like naughty schoolgirls, they hurried away to decorate the entrance hall and continue their appraisal of Ragley’s new teacher. Meanwhile I found myself having to decide where to pin up posters of Elvis Presley, Duane Eddy, the Everly Brothers and a very youthful Shirley Bassey.
In Diane’s Hair Salon other more important decisions were being discussed. Amelia Duff, the postmistress, was under the dryer. ‘What do you think, Diane?’ she asked. ‘I’m thinking of joining Kays catalogue.’
Diane went to the far corner of the salon and sat on the bay-window bench seat. ‘’Ow come?’
Amelia sighed and looked a little anxious. ‘Well, Ted was in the Post Office this morning and he gave me a Freepost coupon from his TV Times. It said that with your first order you would get a Sunbeam electric blanket – a double-bed size.’
Diane lit up a John Player King Size cigarette and blew the smoke above her head. ‘Sounds a bargain t’me,’ she said.
‘I haven’t got a double bed, Diane.’
Diane smiled. ‘Maybe it’s time y’got one, Amelia.’
‘Do you think so?’
Diane took a last puff, nipped the glowing end of her cigarette and placed it carefully in the ash tray on the coffee table next to the pile of Woman’s Weekly magazines. ‘Good men don’t grow on trees an’ you’d ’ave t’be blind not t’see ’e’s smitten.’
There was a long silence while Diane removed the rollers from Amelia’s hair. Finally, Amelia spoke. ‘We’ve only cuddled up to now, Diane.’
Diane let this statement hang in the air for a while.
She had learned long ago that psychology was a key part of being a successful hairdresser. Finally she spoke. ‘They sell lovely double beds at the Cavendish store in York – an’ they deliver free an’ put it up f’you in y’bedroom. That Rosie in t’mobile library told me.’
Amelia was silent while she weighed up the gravitas of this decision.
‘He’s taking me to the dance tomorrow,’ she said.
Diane removed the final roller. ‘Well … tell ’im ’e could ’elp y’choose.’
Amelia stared at her reflection in the mirror and smiled. Perhaps the time had come.
That evening, over a piping-hot casserole, Beth told me about her visit to the bank. I listened politely, but in the end I knew I could trust her decisions. She was mapping out a future and even talking about pensions. There were times when the taut strands of our relationship became unravelled and I didn’t know why.
That evening we settled down in the lounge to watch the Nine o’Clock News with John Humphrys. At the end, weatherman Ian McCaskill told us what we already knew – that tomorrow would be like Siberia. We switched over to ITV and our favourite advertisement came on. It was an advert for Yellow Pages and featured an elderly gentleman trying to locate a copy of Fly Fishing by J. R. Hartley. The poor man was trawling around various bookshops to no avail until his daughter gave him the Yellow Pages to browse through and locate a shop that had the book in stock – and viewers discovered that he was the author!
Beth switched back to BBC1 and stretched out with a glass of wine to enjoy Remington Steele. She went very quiet. I guessed she was tired – or maybe she was interested in Pierce Brosnan – so I took the opportunity to creep upstairs to check on John. It was at moments like this I recalled the whispered times of quiet memories. For me love was a living promise, a journey shared. I watched him breathe and knew the elation of fatherhood. I felt blessed.
On Saturday morning the tattered rags of cirrus clouds fluttered across a blue-grey sky. Beth and John drove into York and I decided to open up school so Clint Ramsbottom could set up his Disco Experience. However, a hot drink seemed a good idea, so I called in to Nora’s Coffee Shop.
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